A TREASURY OF TITMICE 



searches for the beech nuts on the ground and 

 carries them up to his branch, is so natty a flip 

 and whisk of black and grey ! Never in repose 

 from the moment he wakes till the moment he 

 roosts, even for a titmouse the cole tit is restless. 

 The ox-eye in April and May will stop to sing, the 

 cole tit never. 



To be awake, with the cole tit, is to be a-wing. 

 Call note, alarm note, courting note, whatever it 

 happen to be, is uttered by the cole tit whilst he 

 is darting from twig to twig, or raining down blows 

 of Lilliput on the beech mast shell, or curiously 

 searching for tiny grubs and chrysalids hidden in 

 the scurf of the bark. 



The ox-eye sometimes utters his whetstone note 

 during moments of comparative repose ; the cole 

 tit has in season a whetstone note, a baby kind of 

 one, but he gets it out whilst doing something else. 

 The ox-eye, when approached too closely, will stop 

 to observe and scold the intruder. A cole tit stops 

 to observe nobody. He is off in good time when 

 danger comes close, but until the moment of his 

 going, he seems never to attend to any intruder. 



It is the same with the long-tailed tit, which pays 

 small heed to human beings. You think you can 

 almost insinuate your fingers into the bush and lay 

 hold of a long-tailed tit, he is so unobservant. But 

 there is this difference between them : the long- 

 tailed tit gives the idea of being rather stupid, a 

 baby of a bird, all swaddled in feathers, very pretty 

 indeed, but not quick-witted ; whereas the cole 



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