432 BRITISH BIRDS' NESTS. 



The female is not so distinctive in coloration ; 

 the black stripe on her under-parts is not so wide or 

 pronounced, and vanishes about the middle of the 

 belly. She is also said by some ornithologists to 

 be smaller, but this is certainly not a very noticeable 

 feature. 



Situation and Locality. In holes in trees, walls , 

 posts, banks, and buildings. The bird will sometimes 

 excavate a hole for itself in a rotten tree. It also 

 occasionally fixes its abode beneath the nest of a 

 Crow, Rook, or Magpie ; inside upturned plant pots 

 standing in gardens, old pumps, and other odd 

 situations. I once found one built inside the old 

 nest of a Blackbird situated in a dense, tangled 

 hedge. Great Tits often return year after year to 

 the same hole to breed. In orchards, gardens, 

 yards, well-timbered commons, woods, plantations, 

 parks, and other wooded places throughout the 

 United Kingdom, with few exceptions. 



Materials. Dry grass, moss, hair, wool, and 

 feathers, somewhat carelessly put together. Some- 

 times no materials at all. Montagu and Morris 

 supposed that where materials were dispensed with 

 altogether, the bird had had her first eggs and nest 

 taken, and had not had time for more nest-building. 

 This theory appears to be perfectly sound, for a few 

 years ago I came across an instance of a bird that 

 had had her first clutch of eggs taken, along with 

 the nest, from a hole in an apple tree, laying again 

 promptly on the rotten powdered wood at the 

 bottom of the hole. 



Eggs. Five to twelve, generally seven or eight ; 

 a Surrey gardener told me one day that a pair of 

 Great Tits nested in a disused beehive close to his 

 master's house, and that he took the eggs away as 



