132 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



the foliage with great rapidity, chasing each other ap- 

 parently in sportive glee. There is not a tree or bush 

 but what the Cole Tit will visit it. Now hanging from 

 the long pendent branches of the graceful birch, now 

 searching the thorny sprays of the hawthorn, now on 

 the topmost branches of the oak or ash, then onwards 

 to the drooping elm. Now on the lowly twigs of the 

 hazel or elder bushes ; then the evergreens in turn are 

 visited, and even the ground ivy, too, is frequently ex- 

 plored. A favourite place to meet with the Cole Tit is 

 on the spreading branches of the fir tree, notably those 

 which are studded with cones. There you see him 

 dexterously ejecting the tiny seeds from their scaly bed, 

 the bird very often clinging to the cone, it may be on 

 the extremity of a slender twig, and its active motions 

 causing the branch and its living burthen to sway back- 

 wards and forwards like the steady beat of a pendulum. 

 A merry little party of wanderers they are, and busying 

 themselves with their own affairs alone. When the sun 

 nears the western horizon the Cole Tits, if it be w^inter 

 time, repair to the verdant branches of the evergreen for 

 repose, or sometimes seek shelter in the warm side of a 

 haystack, always seeking that side opposite to the direc- 

 tion in which the wind is blowing. 



It is early in the vernal year when we hear the Cole 

 Tit's love song — a performance scarcely deserving the 

 name, it is true, but which, however, is perhaps the 

 closer approach to a song than the like notes of any 

 other Titmouse. The nest of the Cole Tit is found 

 in holes of trees principally, but sometimes a hole in a 

 wall will be selected. It is in the birch woods that 

 the Cole Tits, and in fact all the other members of the 

 family, congregate to breed in greatest numbers. The 

 reason for this is the abundance of holes suitable for 



