PLATE II 

 LONG-TAILED TIT. Acredula caudata 



May iy///, 1895. This Plate was taken from a nest in a small lichen-covered 

 oak in a small copse near Callander. I found it when the little birds had 

 just begun to build it, and they took very nearly three weeks to complete it, 

 though they worked at it incessantly; it was gradually built up from the 

 bottom, and the hole at the top was the last to be finished off. The birds 

 were very tame and allowed me to stand within ten feet of the nest while 

 they worked at it. 



Eleven eggs were laid and incubation was commenced before the last 

 egg was laid, the male feeding the sitting bird and attending to her most 

 assiduously. I used to see both birds flying about the bushes and trees 

 in the neighbourhood of the nest about mid-day, chasing each other about 

 among the branches and catching flies, but the female was rarely absent from 

 the nest for more than half an hour at a time, and never went far away. If 

 I approached the nest while she was off, she came back before I had been 

 there half a minute, and scolded me from among the branches of the tree. 



On the twenty-third day from the laying of the first egg, there were two 

 little birds out of the shell, and the rest of the eggs hatched during the next 

 two days. After that, the work of feeding the young ones began, and the 

 parents vied with each other in their attentions to the nestlings ; they were a 

 very loving couple, and generally kept together during the search for food, 

 chasing each other every now and then and flirting in the most barefaced 

 manner. I saw the whole family party about three weeks later hunting for 

 insects among the trees ; the young birds were rather duller in colour than 

 their parents, and their tails were somewhat shorter; otherwise they were 

 almost indistinguishable. 



