616 



BOTTLE-TIT. 



soft note all the time, till on a sudden ail is 

 quiet. 



To return, however, to the nest. It is of an oval 

 form, and about the size of a large pine-apple, with a 

 very small opening on one side near the top. Most 

 writers have described it to have two openings, which 

 is erroneous ; and the great number of works into 

 which this statement has found its way, shows how 

 very much authors have been in the habit of copying 

 from one another. It has even been said that the 

 two holes serve for ingress and egress, and that when 

 the bird is sitting, its long tail may always be seen 

 projecting through one of the orifices. This no doubt 

 is very fanciful and pretty, and answers extremely 

 well to fill out and embellish the natural history of 

 the bird ; but as it certainly is not founded on fact, it 

 only serves, like many other such careless statements 

 about trifling matters, when found to be incorrect, to 

 cast a doubt upon more important assertions ; and 

 when a work is found to contain many little similar 

 inaccuracies, it never can be looked up to as an 

 authority ; as it is from trifles that we arc accustomed 

 to judge of matters of graver import. The fact is, 

 that so far from this bird taking care of its fine tail, 

 the very reverse is the case ; which is perhaps the 

 reason that the singular form of its tail has so escaped 

 the observation of naturalists. Search when you may, 

 it is rather a difficult matter to procure a bottle-tit 

 with a perfect tail, and even immediately after the 

 autumnal moult, many will be found with some new 

 tail feathers injured, before others are properly deve- 

 loped ; and at nesting time particularly, the tails of 

 both male and female are invariably much curled and 

 crumpled, and rarely more- than half their proper 

 length ; which would perhaps imply, that both sexes 

 perform by turns the office of incubation. So many 

 respectable naturalists, however, have described the 

 nest of this bird to have two apertures, that it is only 

 after careful inspection of several dozens of them, that 

 we here venture positively to assert that this never is 

 the case. 



An accurate and minute description of it, however, 

 is given by Aldrovand, of which the following is a 

 quaint translation : " It was of an oblong figure, like 

 a pine-apple ; of two palms length, and one broad ; 

 round, built of sundry materials ; namely, both tree 

 and earth moss, caterpillars' webs, and other woolly- 

 like matter and fibres, arranged with that order and 

 art, that the chief and middle strength of the work, 

 or texture of the walls, was of that yellowish-green 

 moss, the common hairy moss, that silk-like sub- 

 stance, and tough threads, resembling those filaments 

 suspended in the air, and flying up and down like 

 spiders' webs, which are accounted signs of fair 

 weather; connected and interwoven, or rather en- 

 tangled so firmly together, that they could hardly be 

 plucked asunder. Of the interior capacity, all the 

 sides, it seemed, as well as the bottom, were covered 

 and lined with feathers, for the more soft and warm 

 lying of the young. The utmost superficies round 

 about was fenced and strengthened with fragments of 

 that leafy moss which every where grows on trees, 

 firmly bound together. On the fore part, respecting 

 the sun-rise" (which latter, however, is purely fortu- 

 itous), " and that above (where an arched roof, of the 

 same uniform matter and texture with the sides and 

 bottom, covered the nest), was seen a little hole, scarce 

 big enough, one would think, to admit the old one." 



This singular and curious fabric, the interest of 

 which is doubly excited, when we contemplate the 



little bill which is the only instrument employed in 

 its construction, is generally situate on the forked 

 branch of an evergreen, about eight or ten feet from 

 the ground ; sometimes, however, in a large hawthorn 

 bush ; and we have more than once seen it beautifully 

 placed amid the thickly blossomed twigs of a wild 

 crab. The eggs average about ten or twelve, rarely 

 less, but sometimes more ; are of a semi-transparent 

 white, and generally with a few small rusty-coloured 

 spots, at the larger end ; they are subject, however, 

 to considerable variations ; and they require about 

 twelve days to hatch. 



The bottle-tit is almost destitute of song ; but in 

 the spring months it utters, in addition to its usual 

 chirrup, a very pleasing soft ringing note, very simi- 

 lar to the vernal call of the blue titmouse. At other 

 times, it has no other call but that which we have 

 here already endeavoured to express in writing, and 

 which, serving to keep the family together, is con- 

 tinually repeated by them as they flit among the trees 

 and bushes. 



Being desirous of observing the habits of these 

 curious little birds in confinement, we once procured 

 a nest containing ten young ones, which were all 

 easily reared upon chopped meat and egg, and very 

 soon learned to feed of themselves. They became 

 in a short time extremely quarrelsome, and fought 

 with each other most cruelly; being very active, and 

 so many together, one would sometimes fly up against 

 another, and nearly overturn it, on which the latter 

 would always attack whichever happened to be 

 nearest, seizing it by the bare skin around the eye, 

 and in an instant each would have its claws on the 

 other's head, and both would fall together to the 

 ground ; here they would lie struggling for many 

 minutes, uttering all the time a shrill twitter, and 

 clinging so tightly that it was no very easy matter to 

 separate them ; after trying in vain to part them 

 without tearing them to pieces, we have even tossed 

 them from one end of a room to another without their 

 ceasing to fight. Sometimes three, or even four, 

 would thus lie entangled together on the ground, and 

 yet, strange to say, they never seemed to hurt each 

 other much. The chief point of attack was always 

 the bare skin around the eye. 



This quarrelsome propensity may be observed in 

 most young birds, its obvious purpose being, seem- 

 ingly, to promote their dispersion ; at least, so one 

 would imagine. Yet this explanation of it cannot 

 exactly apply to the bottle-tit, as the families keep 

 together till* the following spring. It certainly was 

 not want of space that caused it, for they were in a 

 very large cage, and even when loose about the room 

 it was just the same'; without any apparent cause, 

 one would often follow another and attack it. It 

 lasted, however, only about ten days, or a fortnight, 

 and afterwards they lived together very peaceably. 

 We have often observed similar and equally violent 

 combats among these birds in the spring, about the 

 time when the young of the preceding year are 

 pairing. 



The power which the bottle-tit has of grasping with 

 the feet, is very considerable, fully equal in proportion 

 to that of a woodpecker ; and when the individuals 

 we are now describing were young and playful, it was 

 no uncommon sight to see one clinging (sometimes 

 by one leg) to the long tail of another, and not to be 

 easily shaken off. They seemed to bathe less fre- 

 quently than the different titmice, but were extremely 

 fond of sunning themselves ; that is, of extending 1 



