BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 127 



I wrote once in a magazine an account of how I had 

 caught the same great tit nine times in one afternoon, had 

 nine times put it into an aviary, and nine times had found, on 

 going to look for it, that it was gone. And a newspaper 

 critic of my article suggested that I had been mistaken or 

 something" worse. 



But a year later I found that I had Dr. Giinther with 

 me ; for in an article written by him, now before me, he 

 says that he has caught the same great tit over and over 

 again, and that at last the bird, discovering that nothing 

 disagreeable resulted, coolly went on eating while the trap 

 snapped over him. My own experience was in the hard 

 winter of 1892. I had put out a long row of traps, and 

 visitors were very numerous. Among them came a great 

 tit which was caught and put into the aviary, and to cut 

 the story short, nine times a great tit was caught and nine 

 times put into the aviary. But when in the afternoon we 

 went to look at the captives, there was not a great tit among 

 them all. Then the thought flashed upon me that we had 

 been catching the same bird over and over again. Then we 

 caught another great tit, and this time, before letting it go, 

 we marked its tail, and sure enough the next great tit we 

 caught had its tail marked. So instead of putting it into 

 the aviary we fixed the trap open to let it eat its fill of 

 chopped fat and hemp-seed without molestation. 



How did it manage to get out ? The mesh of the 



