GREAT TIT. 465 
“ Oxeye”’ has an object in searching these buds; for lurking within them 
are grubs which might eventually prove quite as injurious, not only to the 
bud which it pulls to pieces, but to many others on the same tree. The 
Great Tit is not unfrequently seen on the ground under the trees, where 
no doubt it finds a plentiful supply of insects amongst the fallen leaves. 
The site of the Great Tit’s nest varies considerably. Holes in walls and 
- decaying timber are favourite places; so, too, are the deserted nests of 
Crows and Magpies, as also amongst the sticks in the foundation of Rooks’ 
nests. Most curious situations are sometimes chosen by this bird in which 
to build its nest. Like the Robin, it appears to have the same weakness 
for a flower-pot ; or it will sometimes select an old pump. Stevenson, in 
his ‘ Birds of Norfolk, i. p. 141, gives a long and interesting account of 
a nest of this bird in a cupboard ; and Dixon has known it build in a hole 
in the ground. The Great Tit has also been known to make a hole for 
itself in a tree-trunk by picking out the rotten wood with its beak ; and 
according to Montagu the eggs are sometimes laid on the powdered wood 
at the bottom of the hole without any nest whatever. The nests of the 
Great Tit may be divided into two classes. First we have those nests 
which are placed in covered sites, as holes in walls or trees; and, secondly, 
those which are built in the deserted nests of other birds or amongst the 
sticks of Rooks’ nests. If we examine nests from these several situations, 
we find that they differ considerably. Those from covered sites are open 
and very loosely put together ; whilst those from the open sites are domed 
like a Wren’s and comparatively well made. Dixon has taken a nest of 
this latter variety from inside an old Magpie’s nest. It resembled a ball of 
_ Inoss, and was so cunningly woven as to render it necessary to pull it to 
pieces ere the eggs could be obtained. This is an analogous case to the 
two very distinct types of nest of the common House-Sparrow. The nest 
of the Great Tit is made of dry grass, a quantity of moss, which is thickly 
interwoven with hairs and wool, sometimes a few withered leaves, and is 
generally lined with a thick bed of feathers. 
The eggs of the Great Tit are from five to eleven in number, usually 
seven or eight, and vary somewhat in size and markings. ‘They are pure 
white in colour, sometimes with a faint yellowish tinge, spotted and 
blotched with light reddish brown. Some specimens are far more richly 
marked than others, the colour being distributed in bold blotches ; on others 
it consists of mere specks, sometimes partly confluent and forming a zone 
round the larger end of the egg. They measure from ‘8 to ‘65 inch in 
length, and from °55 to °5 inch in breadth. 
It is absolutely impossible to distinguish the eggs of the Great Tit from 
those of the other Tits except by their size; and even then small varieties of 
its eggs are undistinguishable from certain large varieties of the others, 
or of those of the Creeper. In the latter case the nest and its site must 
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