IN A FIR HEDGE 203 



sometimes struck me that the bird feels a little 

 confused, or not quite easy, in consequence. It has 

 such a feeling, I feel sure, which, though slight, 

 yet just marks its consciousness of having deviated 

 from a routine. Possibly the feeling is stronger 

 than I am imagining, for on one occasion, at least, 

 I have seen a bird that had got the wrong side of 

 a twig palisade, so to speak, in approaching its nest, 

 turn back and pass it, on the right side. The nest, 

 in this instance also, was in one of those fine, open 

 hedges, made of the branches of the Scotch fir — 

 planted and growing — which are common m this 

 part of Suffolk, and through these there was a 

 regular "approach'' to the house, not straight, but 

 in a crescent, as though for a carriage to drive up — 

 the *' sweep " of the days of Jane Austen — and the 

 birds always went up and down it like dear little 

 orthodox things as they are. During the later 

 stages of construction, the hole in the side of the 

 nest becomes so small and tight, that even these 

 petite little creatures have, often, to struggle quite 

 violently, in order to force themselves through it ; 

 and this, I think, also, is evidence that the door is 

 not due to design — that the bird never has the 

 thought in its mind, '* There must be a door to 

 get in and out by." Instead of that, it keeps 

 getting in and out, and this, of necessity, makes the 

 door. These tits, when building, seem to rest, for 

 a little, in the nest, before leaving it, and sometimes 

 one will sit, for some minutes, quite still, with its 

 head projecting through the aperture, looking like 

 a cleverly-painted miniature in a round frame. At 

 other times the tail projects, and that, though not 



