THE BLUE-TIT. 159 



chee-zek, or sometimes te-usza, chee-zek ; the scolding-note is a sort of diminutive 

 chatter, Seebohm calls it "a harsh chattering note" which I think describes it 

 very aptly. 



In its food this bird is almost omnivorous ; insects of all kinds (no matter how 

 large) and caterpillars, spiders, centipedes, fat, the brains of its sickly relatives, 

 fruit, nuts, seeds, bread, potato : all are eaten with relish. In winter, if a bone, 

 with a few fragments of meat adhering, is hung up, the Blue-Tit is not the most 

 backward of its family in taking advantage of it : it feeds its young on caterpillars, 

 chiefly of the V-motli.* 



The nest is placed in all kinds of situations : in holes in trees, walls, banks, 

 gravel-pits or gate-posts, in lamp-posts, old pumps, in niches in out-houses, on tops 

 of walls under overhanging thatches, and behind lattice-work of summer-hoiises : 

 but, whatever the cavity selected, it is thickly lined at the bottom, often at the 

 sides, and (when exposed behind lattice-work) over-arched, with moss, dead leaves, 

 dried grass, feathers, and cobweb : the nest thus formed is entered either from the 

 top or front according to its method of construction ; a thick bed of feathers forms 

 the inner lining. The eggs, according to my experience, vary in number from 

 eight to ten for a full clutch, eight being the usual complement ; but some writers 

 have asserted positively that they have found twelve and even as many as eighteen 

 in a nest ; in all such cases I should strongly suspect that two hen birds had 

 deposited in the same nest : ten is not a common number for I have only once 

 found a Blue-Tit on so many eggs ; on one other occasion I took ten young ones 

 out of a nest out of curiosity, and then replaced them. I should therefore regard 

 a Blue-Tit which laid twelve eggs as a phenomenon of fecundity, and one reported 

 as laying eighteen as a myth. 



In colouring the eggs are snow-white, with the usual pink transparent glow 

 when freshly deposited : in spotting they differ not a little ; some eggs at first 

 sight appearing to be immaculate, but when closely examined revealing numerous 

 dust-like specks of light red and dark grey, principally confined to the larger end ; 

 a second variety is pretty evenly sprinkled all over with rust-red dots ; a third 

 form shows larger spots scattered amongst the smaller markings ; a fourth differs 

 from the latter in the presence of splashes of red at the larger end ; finally I have 

 taken specimens in which grey and red-brown spots are massed into a dark zonal 

 patch at the larger end. Some of the eggs which I have found, excepting that 

 they are perhaps a trifle longer, could not be distinguished from those of the 

 Willow- Warbler ; and others, excepting that they are a size smaller, might easily 



* This being a Gooseberry-moth, the blunder has been made of crediting the Blue-Tit with eating cater- 

 pillars of "the Gooseberry-moth": I know of no British bird which will touch this caterpillar. 



