GREAT-TIT, BLUE-TIT, COAL-TIT, MARSH-TIT i!r, 



of Mr. Newstead's researches, surely even the "obstinate and 

 opinionated" can no longer doubt the wickedness of slaughtering 

 these innocents! 



With regard to the great and blue-tits, it to necessary to quote 

 from Mr. Newstead's pamphlet at some length in order that the 

 reader may judge for himself whether, apart from all sentimental 

 considerations, these two birds have, or have not, a right to 

 live : 



"Out of thirty-three blue-tits examined, thirty-one contained 

 insects of the injurious group, three beneficial groups, seven 

 indifferent groups; three spiders, ten wheat, four maize, five pear, 

 three apple rind, eleven bud scales, two vegetable matter un- 

 determined, four fungus." Two of these "caught red-handed at the 

 peas," had fed almost entirely on American blight, while amongst those 

 shot while devouring pears, two were found to have destroyed also a 

 large quantity of injurious insects. The stomach of one immature 

 bird contained equal proportions of pear, fruit, and plant lice ; 

 another contained 500 wings and other remains of plant lice, also 

 American blight With regard to the injurious insect food devoured 

 by blue-tits during the winter: "The species which are eaten to 

 a marked extent are (1) the mussel scale of the apple; (2) the white 

 scale of the willow and ash ; (3) the pit-making coccoid of the onk ; 

 (4) the young forms of the gooseberry scale, and other allied species 

 of this genus ; (5) the young forms of the cottony cushion-scale of the 

 currant" "Out of fourteen great-tits examined, thirteen contained 

 insects of the injurious group, six beneficial group, one indifferent, 

 one inollusca, one spider, two apple rind and pips, two wheat, one 

 maize, one bud Males." 



" The nestlings (of great-tit) are fed very largely on moth larva*. 

 In June 1908 I watched a pair which had a brood of eight young in 

 an iron pump, in a small rose nursery near Chester. Ninety per 

 cent of the food brought to the young consisted of the larva; of 

 Geometrid moths, which were collected chiefly from the damson, 



VOL. II. 



