PARUS MAJOR. 327 



hanging by their feet, back downwards, on the most slender 

 twigs — then running up the trunk searching every nook and 

 cranny for the carefully concealed eggs or larvae, then off to the 

 next tree, with direct and rapid flight, to renew their antics. 

 It is an early breeder ; I have heard its courting notes in March, 

 which can hardly be called a song ; but what it wants in harmony 

 it has in vigour, variety, and dash. When heard in a still 

 wood its loud chur, r, chir, r, r, r, ik, like the scrape of a file on 

 a saw ; or still louder, three notes of cheeka, cheeka, cheeka may 

 be heard one thousand yards away, sometimes imitating the clear 

 chink, chink of the chaffinch, with the plaintive chilly, lilly 

 poo of the yellow-hammer, as if glad to give some kind of a 

 song — having no particular one of its own. They have two and 

 three broods in the year ; the first flies in June. A pair had 

 their nest in an old ash tree near the shore bridge in Abbey 

 Park. On the 18th of June the whole brood, young and old, 

 found their way into our boat-shed at the harbour, and with 

 difficulty scrambled out by the broken panes ; two were caught 

 exhausted with their own attempts, lifted up, and let away to 

 join their friends ; strange these did not scratch and bite, as tits 

 usually do, and for which it (along with the blue tit) is called 

 billy-biter — a proof that even birds distinguish a friend from a 

 foe. A nest-box was placed between the branches of a low tree, 

 a robin took possession early, had one brood, and an ox-eye had 

 two broods afterwards in the same box one year. Although its 

 chief food is the eggs, pupa?, and larvae of insects, along with 

 insects, it also feeds on seeds, buds, and carrion ; it will even 

 kill weak young birds, and has been known to break their skulls 

 by blows with its strong pointed bill ; but in this it is not 

 singular, as it is the survival of the fittest throughout creation — 

 including man. In husking cereal seeds, such as wheat and oats, 

 it does not shiel them like the huskers — the finches and sparrows, 

 but by strokes with its bill. It is not so social as the rest of the 

 tits, flying together in parties, although it sometimes mingles 

 with them. Its chief home is the woods, summer and winter, 

 where it searches every crevice in the bark, branches, buds, and 

 leaves to keep down insect pests. White of Selborne says — 

 IC In hard weather, and in deep snows, I have seen it hang with 

 its back downwards (to my delight and admiration) and draw 

 straws from the eaves of thatched houses, to get the flies that 

 were concealed between them, to such an extent as to give the 

 thatch a ragged appearance." It is calculated that each tit will 

 destroy 20,000 eggs and larvae daily, or 6J millions yearly. 



