GREAT TITMOUSE. 31 1 



lined with heather, woven into the rest of the fabric in 

 such a manner as that only the soft parts come in con- 

 tact with the eggs or the young. Both birds labour at 

 the formation of the nest, and they take the fatigue of 

 incubation by turns. The number of eggs varies more 

 than that of many birds ; sometimes there are not more 

 than six, and at other times there are as many as four- 

 teen the average may be about nine or ten. The 

 eggs are of a yellowish white, with ferruginous spots, 

 which are most numerous at the thick end. When 

 the young quit the shell, they are blind and very 

 feeble, but they grow rapidly. From the rapacious 

 appetites of the old birds, it is natural to suppose that 

 the young will require a great deal of food ; and that, 

 with the number of the young, and also the great com- 

 petition of the number of families, keeps the old birds 

 very much on the alert during the two weeks that the 

 young are in the nest before they come out. At that 

 time, the birds hawk for insects upon the wing; they 

 catch bees in that way, and also hover about, and pick 

 them up when they are busy in the nectaries of flowers, 

 so that where there are apiaries titmice are very des- 

 tructive. Still the harm that they do as bee eaters is 

 much more than compensated by the good that they 

 do as scavengers ; and in a fruit country, the destruc- 

 tion of the great titmice would be about as wise and 

 profitable as the extirpation of rooks has proved to be 

 to those grain farmers, and even grass farmers, that 

 have attempted it. There is no great danger of the 

 extirpation of the race, however, even though it were 

 attempted. The birds are active in their motions, and 



