484 



In many parishes in England a price not long since used to 

 to be paid by the churchwardens for the heads of this 

 species and its congeners under the general name of Tom- 

 tits, on account of the loss they were believed to inflict on 

 the gardeners. Yet none can be more mistaken than these 

 men. If they watched more closely they would see that 

 while all the buds were looked over some of them only were 

 picked open. Often a single bird or the whole family-party 

 will alight on a tree, and, after a very brief survey, will go on 

 to the next, where perhaps a prolonged stay will be made. 

 To man's eyes the two trees are just alike and the buds at 

 the same stage of growth there is no seeming difference 

 between any two on the same bough. The bird however 

 knows better : the germ of the one is sound, that of the 

 other infected, and hence the choice it uses. Hardly any 

 portion of the bud itself is eaten ; the egg or the insect 

 already lodged there is the morsel sought. The bud of 

 course when picked open is in most cases utterly destroyed, 

 but with it is also destroyed the potential destroyer of more 

 buds than any one can tell. The damage of which the gar- 

 dener thinks he sees the doing has really been done before, 

 perhaps some months before. There can in truth be little 

 doubt that this Titmouse with others of the genus is a very 

 great benefactor to the horticulturist, and hardly ever more 

 so than when the careless spectator of its deeds is supposing 

 it to be bent on mischief. 



The evidence of numerous attentive observers might be 

 adduced in support of the statement just advanced. Thus 

 Selby says that he is convinced of the accusations having 

 been "inconsiderately made." Knapp gives details of the 

 numbers of insects the Bluecap destroys, and declaims against 

 the custom of rewarding its destruction. Mr. Weir with his 

 usual perseverance observed that a pair fed their young 475 

 times in the space of seventeen hours, sometimes bringing a 

 single large caterpillar, at other times two or three small 

 ones. Thompson, who examined the stomachs of a number 

 of examples from December to March, finding them to con- 

 tain the remains of insects and very few of them any vege- 



