1 8 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



— a real jump — without appearing to aid himself 

 with his wings at all. The note of these tits is a 

 " Zee, zee — zee, zee, zee, zee," but it is not of such 

 a sharp quality as the "zee'' or "tzee'' of the blue 

 tit. It is more pleasing — indeed, there is something 

 very pleasing about it. What is there, in fact, that 

 is not pleasing about this little bird ^ 



But I have something more to say upon the 

 subject of the coal-tit's diet ; for he eats, I believe, 

 the seeds of the fir-cones, and manages not only to 

 pick them out of these, but to pick the cone itself to 

 pieces in so doing — a wonderful feat, surely, when 

 one thinks how large and hard the cone is, and how 

 small the bird. It is not on the tree that I have 

 seen these tits feeding in this manner, but on the 

 ground, and the question, for me, is whether the 

 cones that lay everywhere about had been detached 

 and then reduced, sometimes, almost to shreds, by 

 them or by squirrels. At first I unhesitatingly put 

 it down to the latter, but I soon noticed that in 

 these particular firs — not part of a plantation but 

 skirting the road, as is common here — a squirrel was 

 never to be seen. Neither were coal-tits numerous, 

 but still a pair or two seemed to live here, and were 

 often engaged with the cones. Half-a-dozen of 

 these I took home to examine at leisure. Two, I 

 found, had been only just commenced on, and the 

 punctures upon them were certainly such as might 

 have been made by the beak of a small bird, sug- 

 gesting that the tit had here begun the process of 

 picking the cone to pieces, before any squirrel had 

 touched it. One of the outer four-sided scales had 

 been removed, and as no cut or excoriation was 



