352 THE LIFE OF A BIRD. 



a-day for the requirements of one, and that a 

 diminished brood, and give us some comprehen- 

 sion of the infinite number requisite for the 

 summer nutriment of our soft-billed birds, and 

 the great distances gone over by such as have 

 young ones, in their numerous trips from hedge to 

 tree in the hours specified, when they have full 

 broods to support. A climate of moisture and 

 temperature like our own is peculiarly favourable 

 for the production of insect food, which would in 

 some seasons be particularly injurious, were we 

 not visited by such numbers of our active little 

 friends to consume it." 



Mr. Hewitson records an instance in which eight- 

 teen eggs were found in a long-tailed titmouse's nest. 

 If we imagine the whole of these to have been 

 hatched, what a prodigious family must it have 

 proved for a pair of these little birds to support. 

 Among those who patronise athletic sports, a very 

 common feat is to set a man to pick up stones 

 a little distance apart, returning with each and 

 placing it in a basket before picking up the next. 

 Few persons can form a proper estimate of the 

 vast distance which must be gone over in the 

 accomplishment of this feat, even supposing the 



