THE CRESTED TIT. 161 



to interfere ; then all five would fly up to the rim of my wideawake and hop 

 round, trying to pull the ribbon to pieces ; next I should feel one drop to my 

 shoulder, when it would hop to the collar of my coat and pull my ear, or my 

 hair. Another favourite occupation was, to start from the bottom of my waistcoat 

 and carefully examine and test every button, pull at my watchchain, peck at 

 the outer rim of each pocket, then back to my hand, whence they would travel 

 by little zigzag hops along my arm to my shoulder. 



Seeing how tame these hand-reared Tits were, I caught twenty others, which 

 I turned in with them ; and, although these also became tame enough to feed 

 from my hand, they never acquired the confidence of my nestlings. Alas ! charming 

 as these birds were, they were short-lived : I had provided numerous warmly 

 furnished boxes for them to retire to at night, but they would not behave in 

 an aviary as they do out of doors, each claimed its own box and fought all 

 would-be intruders ; so that, as the nights grew colder, they were quite unable 

 to keep warm, and dropped off one at a time : moreover, no sooner did one 

 of them become ill and lie in bed in the morning, than callers began to drop 

 in to breakfast (not with the invalid, but) upon its brains : this I proved 

 repeatedly. Out of doors the whole family would have crept into one hole, or 

 into the warmer side of a haystack, and all would probably have survived ; but 

 good living made them selfish and high-minded, and disaster followed. On the 

 1 5th December only one remained alive, and a severe frost, lasting for twenty- 

 two days, in the early part of 1890, killed him: I have given up keeping Blue- 

 Tits since that time. 



Family PARIDsE. 



THE CRESTED TIT. 



Parus cristatus, L,INN. 



NEVER having personally met with this extremely local species, I am com- 

 pelled to base my account of it entirely upon the writings of others ; a 

 course which, when possible, it is always best to avoid. 



VOL. I. 2 E 



