GREAT-TIT, BLUE-TIT, COAL-TIT, MARSH-TIT 201 



the tree becoming decayed, the bottle was placed in one near by, and 

 the tenancy continued till 1 *."!. In that year the occupiers of the 

 farm omitted drawing out the old nest, as had been their constant 

 practice before the breeding season, and in consequence the birds 

 chose another place. But in 1852 they returned to the bottle and 

 have since annually built in it, or in a second bottle which has lately 

 been placed close by it, up to the pPMMrt year 1918, with the excep- 

 tion of one season, when a pair of great-tits took possession of their 

 inheritance. The intruders were shot in the hope that the tenancy 

 will not be again disturbed." ' 



Having found out that the last of the Callenders was dead, and that 

 the present occupier of the farm at Oxbridge was named Bell, I wrote 

 to inquire about the fate of this historic bottle, and received an answer 

 from Mrs. Bell on November 1C, 1910, as follows : " The bottle is still 

 in the tree, and blue-tits build there every year." 



One summer a pair of great-tits, which reared a family in a n 

 box beneath my dining-room window, regularly invaded the 

 for scraps of food. The male bird would perch on a knife-machine 

 in the passage, dart into the kitchen when the cook's back was turned, 

 seize bits of suet or fat and carry them into the nesting-box surely a 

 cheap way of rearing a family ! 



Mr. Farren tells me that in the summer of 1908, every day for the 

 greater part of a week, a great-tit brought two, and sometimes three, 

 youngsters into his backyard, where he fed the birds throughout 

 the winter. "The little ones sat on the wall while the parent dug 

 out pieces from a very stale cocoa-nut which was suspended from a 

 post, and carried these morsels to the young. They evidently liked 

 this food for they squealed impatiently while the chopping-out process 

 was going on. I forget exactly how soon, but not more than a week 

 after the first visit, I saw the young ones helping themselves to the 

 cocoa-nut, or, at any rate, trying to do so." 



The young of all these species remain longer in the nest than do 



1 Varrell, 4th ed., vol. i. p. 48(1 



