COAL-TIT 



CHAPTER VIII 



TITS, as I think I have said, or implied, are a 

 feature of Icklingham. They like the fir plan- 

 tations, which, though of no great dimensions for 

 they only make a patch here and there are to 

 them, by virtue of their tininess, as the wide- 

 stretching forests of Brazil. Sitting here, in the 

 spring-time, on the look-out, with a general alertness 

 for anything, but not thinking of tits in particular, 

 one may become, gradually, aware for their softness 

 sinks upon one, one never sees them suddenly of 

 one of these little birds dropping, every few minutes, 

 from the branches of a fir to the ground, and there 

 disappearing. In a lazy sort of way you watch to 

 be more direct I once watched and soon I saw 

 there were a pair. They crossed one another, some- 

 times, going or coming, and, each time, the one that 



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