8 THE SMALLER BRITISH BIRDS. 



will induce her to forsake her young, but she will defend them 

 against tho Hawk, the Owl, the Magpie, the Thrush, or any other 

 feathered depredator. One has been known to sit still while a part of 

 the tree on which she had built was being sawed off; another who 

 had built in a box hung at the side of the house, did not fly off 

 when the box was lifted off its support and taken into the house, 

 nor forsake her nest, as many birds would have done, when it was 

 replaced; another, who had nested in a letter-box which was opened 

 twice every day to take out the letters, hatched and reared her young 

 in that strange place, without showing any signs of fear at the near 

 approach of her enemy man. Again, there was one, who having built 

 in the hollow of a pump, where the handle is inserted, sat steadily, 

 notwithstanding the noise and motion caused by the working of the 

 pump. 



Pages and pages might be filled with a bare mention of the curious 

 places in which the Blue Tit has chosen to build, or rather to lay 

 eggs, for about building very little trouble is taken; almost any 

 hollow place will suffice for the purpose, and a very little of any soft 

 materials will do for the lining of the hole in which the eggs may be 

 found in March or April; thoy vary in number from eight to twelve, 

 as many as eighteen have been counted in one nest, and as few as 

 six, in the latter case perhaps some may have been destroyed. Their 

 colour is white with a delicate pink tinge, and reddish brown spots. 



A few more curiosities of Blue Tit nidification may be here men- 

 tioned. We have spoken of the pump and the letter-box in which 

 the funny bird posted her eggs without any direction, consequently 

 they were never taken out and delivered, but very soon their contents 

 became known, for they flew all over the country. One of these birds, 

 which had no doubt taken the pledge, had her tail worn to a stump 

 by the friction of the pump handle, but she bravely sat out her 

 term, and no doubt taught all her young to be total abstainers. We 

 are told of one who made her nest in a bottle, up and down the 

 neck of which she passed every time she fed her fledglings, ten in 

 number; the bottle was fifteen inches deep, and the neck one inch in 

 diameter, and through this narrow passage every two or three minutes 

 during the day went one or other of the parent birds with a grub or 

 caterpillar, or some insect for the craving little ones. A very strange 

 and ghastly place indeed did one pair of these birds choose for their 

 habitation, viz.: the mouth of the skeleton of a murderer that hung 

 on a gibbet. This was in the old days when the bones of those who 

 had committed great crimes were allowed to bleach in the sun, and 

 rattle in the wintry wind, as a warning to evil doers. All this is 



