Coal-tit 



CHAPTER VIII 



are a 



Tits, as I think I have said, or implied, 

 feature of Icklingham. They like the fir plan- 

 tations, which, though of no great dimensions — for 

 they only make a patch here and there — are to 

 them, by virtue of their tininess, as the wide- 

 stretching forests of Brazil. Sitting here, in the 

 spring-time, on the look-out, with a general alertness 

 for anything, but not thinking of tits in particular, 

 one may become, gradually, aware — for their softness 

 sinks upon one, one never sees them suddenly — of 

 one of these little birds dropping, every few minutes, 

 from the branches of a fir to the ground, and there 

 disappearing. In a lazy sort of way you watch — to 

 be more direct I once watched — and soon I saw 

 there were a pair. They crossed one another, some- 

 times, going or coming, and, each time, the one that 



