GREAT TITMOUSE 65 



has been taken or destroyed, and the bird is in a hurry about 

 her second brood, the eggs are laid on the dust of the 

 wood. 



A nest in the wall of a house has been found to have been 

 exclusively composed of rabbit's fur; all the corners of the 

 hole were filled with it : in the middle was a most exquisitely- 

 formed round hollow. 



Still more extraordinary places have been selected. Dr. 

 Bowdler Sharpe speaks of one in Hyde Park in the inside 

 of an iron post in a railing, the entrance being through a 

 small defective hole in the ironwork. If a large hole has to 

 be filled up the birds will take in a large amount of moss, on 

 the top of which they will occasionally make two or three 

 nests. At South Kensington may be seen a wooden post- 

 box from Rowfant, Sussex, in which for two or three years in 

 succession a pair of Great Tits built their nests, not even 

 moving out when the letters were dropped on the back of the 

 sitting bird. And one has recently been recorded in an 

 upright iron pipe three-and-a-half inches in diameter, which 

 served as a ventilating shaft to a manure pit. The top of the 

 pipe was six feet from the ground, and the nest was placed 

 about two feet down. It was most interesting to watch the 

 old birds descend with the food for the young down the pipe, 

 and a matter of surprise to note how readily they worked 

 their way to the top after each time they fed the young. 



The eggs, from six to nine or ten in number, are pure 

 white or white tinged with yellow, dotted all over irregularly 

 with reddish brown. 



One variety is thus much marked at the thicker end, 

 with a few scattered specks over the remainder of the surface. 



A second is very elegantly dotted with rather large spots, 

 few in number. 



VOL. I. I 



