176 THE TAWNY OWL. 
however, of a hammer and a chisel applied to the 
spot, you are soon let into the secret: and you find 
the wood, in the quarter where the fungus appeared, 
of a texture soft and altered, and somewhat ap- 
proaching to that of cork. Here, then, you can 
readily form an excavation large enough to contain 
a pair of tawny owls. 
In the year 1831, I pointed out to Mr. Ord (the 
elegant and scientific biographer of poor Wilson) 
just such an ash tree as that which I have described. 
It was above 2 ft. in diameter, and there was a fungus 
on the western side of it. After I had excavated 
nearly half way through the tree, I found a portion 
of the wood more tainted than the rest: so, putting 
a longer handle into the socket of the chisel, I 
worked in the direction which it took; until, most 
unexpectedly, I came to the nest of a titmouse. 
The bird, like the Portuguese at Mindanao, had 
evidently taken possession of the tenement through 
an aperture from the eastward, now closed up with 
living bark ; while I, like the Spaniards, had arrived 
at the same place, by pursuing a course from the 
westward. If I might judge by the solid appearance 
of the bark, I should say that, some fifty or sixty 
years ago, a branch must have been blown off from 
this eastern side of the bole; and there the rain 
had found an entrance, and had gradually formed a 
cavity. The titmouse, judging it a convenient place, 
had chosen it for her nidification; and, probably, 
had resorted to it every year, until the growing 
wood at the mouth of the orifice had contracted the 
entrance, and, at last, closed it up for ever: leaving 
