80 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



great-tits will come to share the feast with him 

 the great-tit rather aggressively but neither strikes 

 me as quite so much at ease on the disc of the 

 sunflower as he. 



At a little distance the disc, when it begins to lose 

 its shape and to curl at the edges, looks like a piece 

 of honeycomb ; and the likeness grows when patches 

 of white dots are seen amid the brown. These are 

 the ripening nuts, or seeds, packed with perfect neat- 

 ness, the shell of each smooth as ivory, and, in touch 

 and look, rather reminding one of ivory. The package 

 being so tight and firm, it is not quite easy to pick out 

 with the fingers a seed, or, rather, the shell that holds 

 the seed. The marsh-tit does not always force it out 

 of the disc at the first attempt, whilst blue-tits are 

 less expert than he is and are often defeated. Lying 

 on the grass by a bed of giant sunflowers beginning to 

 ripen their seed a perfect way to spend an hour of 

 autumn sunshine I have found the place a flitter of 

 titmice. The marsh-tits, so spick and span, with their 

 comely black bonnets, and the rest of them a good 

 grey, are winning little things to watch. If plainly, 

 they are boldly dressed ; besides, have they not a 

 series of notes that sound full of spirit and character ? 

 Perhaps, at the sunflower feast, we do not hear many 

 of these notes, but we see the marsh-tit at delightfully 

 close quarters. He will come with his quick, decisive 

 flits straight to the disc of ripening nuts, and, cling- 

 ing to the face of it, shake or force a nut from the 



