GREAT TIT. 465 



" Oxeye " has an object in searching these buds ; for lurking within them 

 are grubs which might eventually prove quite as injurious, not only to the 

 bud which it pulls to pieces, but to many others on the same tree. The 

 Great Tit is not unfrequently seen on the ground under the trees, where 

 no doubt it finds a plentiful supply of insects amongst the fallen leaves. 



The site of the Great Tit's nest varies considerably. Holes in walls and 

 decaying timber are favourite places ; so, too, are the deserted nests of 

 Crows and Magpies, as also amongst the sticks in the foundation of Rooks' 

 nests. Most curious situations are sometimes chosen by this bird in which 

 to build its nest. Like the Robin, it appears to have the same weakness 

 for a flower-pot ; or it will sometimes select an old pump. Stevenson, in 

 his ' Birds of Norfolk/ i. p. 141, gives a long and interesting account of 

 a nest of this bird in a cupboard ; and Dixon has known it build in a hole 

 in the ground. The Great Tit has also been known to make a hole for 

 itself in a tree-trunk by picking out the rotten wood with its beak ; and 

 according to Montagu the eggs are sometimes laid on the powdered wood 

 at the bottom of the hole without any nest whatever. The nests of the 

 Great Tit may be divided into two classes. First we have those nests 

 which are placed in covered sites, as holes in walls or trees ; and, secondly, 

 those which are built in the deserted nests of other birds or amongst the 

 sticks of Rooks' nests. If we examine nests from these several situations, 

 we find that they differ considerably. Those from covered sites are open 

 and very loosely put together ; whilst those from the open sites are domed 

 like a Wren's and comparatively well made. Dixon has taken a nest of 

 this latter variety from inside an old Magpie's nest. It resembled a ball of 

 moss, and was so cunningly woven as to render it necessary to pull it to 

 pieces ere the eggs could be obtained. This is an analogous case to the 

 two very distinct types of nest of the common House-Sparrow. The nest 

 of the Great Tit is made of dry grass, a quantity of moss, which is thickly 

 interwoven with hairs and wool, sometimes a few withered leaves, and is 

 generally lined with a thick bed of feathers. 



The eggs of the Great Tit are from five to eleven in number, usually 

 seven or eight, and vary somewhat in size and markings. They are pure 

 white in colour, sometimes with a faint yellowish tinge, spotted and 

 blotched with light reddish brown. Some specimens are far more richly 

 marked than others, the colour being distributed in bold blotches; on others 

 it consists of mere specks, sometimes partly confluent and forming a zone 

 round the larger end of the egg. They measure from "8 to '65 inch in 

 length, and from '55 to '5 inch in breadth. 



It is absolutely impossible to distinguish the eggs of the Great Tit from 

 those of the6ther Tits except by their size ; and even then small varieties of 

 its eggs are undistinguishable from certain large varieties of the others 

 or of those of the Creeper. In the latter case the nest and its site must 



VOL. i. 2ja 



