204 BLUE TIT. 
eut through, thereby affecting its escape into the room. It 
then flew to the children, and having taken hold of a piece 
of bread or cake, in the hand of the youngest, would not 
forego the object of attack, though shaken with the greatest 
force the child could exert; indeed, the latter was so perse- 
cuted on one occasion for a piece of apple, that she ran crying 
out of the apartment. It was particularly fond of sugar. 
Confined in the same cage with this bird were some other 
species, and among them a Redbreast, which it sometimes 
annoyed so much as to bring upon its head severe chastise- 
ment. A favourite trick was to pull the feathers out of its 
fellow-prisoners. ‘The young Willow Wren before alluded to 
was sadly tormented in this way. A similar attempt was 
even made on a Song Thrush, introduced into its domicile, 
but it was successfully repelled. This mischievous Tit escaped 
out of doors several times, but always returned without being 
sought for.’ 
The flight of this species is rather unsteady, executed by 
repeated flappings, and if lengthened is undulated. 
The Blue-cap seems to be omnivorous in its appetite, Its 
principal food consists of caterpillars, spiders, moths, and other 
insects and their eggs. In quest of these it plucks off num- 
berless buds, but it is at least questionable whether the 
remedy is not even in this case far better than the disease, 
for doubtless the insects or their eggs, which it thus destroys, 
would eventually otherwise consume those very leaves, now, 
though prematurely, ‘nipped in the bud.’ ‘In what evil hour, 
and for what crime,’ says Mr. Knapp, ‘this poor little bird 
could have incurred the anathema of a parish, it is difficult 
to conjecture. An item passed in one of our late churchwardens’ 
accounts, was ‘for seventeen dozen of Tomtits’ heads.’ A 
few peas are the extent of its depredations. Grain, especially 
oats, which they hold between their claws, and pick at until 
they twitch them from the husk, seeds and berries they like- 
wise feast on; are fond also of animal food, and will, occasion- 
ally, so some say, destroy other small birds. They have been 
observed by the Rev. Messrs. Matthews, to carry food—a 
caterpillar, or an insect, to the young, three or four times 
every ten minutes. Mr. Weir communicated to Mr. Macgil- 
livray his observations on their feeding their young, from a 
quarter-past two in the morning to half-past eight in the 
evening, and found that they did so in that period, on the 
average of the different hours, four hundred and seventy-five 
