BLUE TIT. 65 
the neck one inch in diameter. I am at a loss to know 
how the birds could manage to ascend.” Mr. Thompson 
mentions a similar case in an ornamental jar; and 
another, communicated by Mr. Poole, in which the male 
used to feed the female through the neck of the jar. 
In the “York Herald” of June 19th., 1852, I find 
the following:—‘So far back as the year 1779, a pair 
of Blue-caps built their nest, and brought up their 
young in a large stone bottle, which had been left to 
drain on the lower branches of a plum tree, fronting the 
farm-house near Stockton now occupied by Mr. Callendar. 
During this long period, seventy-three years, this bottle, 
with the exception of last year, has been annually te- 
nanted in the breeding-season, from generation to gener- 
ation, by these little gay-plumaged visitors; and as they 
generally lay each year about fourteen eggs, it may fairly 
be computed that this wonderful, inexhaustible bottle, 
has been the birth-place of above a thousand Blue-caps. 
About thirty years ago, the old plum tree, upon whose 
boughs the bottle was first placed, having fallen into 
a state of decay, the bottle was placed upon the branches 
of an adjoining plum tree, to which it is now fastened 
by iron hoops. The little creatures, however, did not 
desert their favourite tenement by this change. Last 
year they made their appearance, as usual, at the bottle, 
but the inmates of the farm-house having neglected to 
draw the previous year’s nest out of it, the birds not 
having room to build, were necessitated to seek other 
quarters. ‘This year, however, they have built again in 
their old residence, where they are at present daily em- 
ployed in attending to the wants of a numerous progeny.” 
The nest is also often placed under the eaves of 
houses, the tiles of the roof, or any suitable part of 
an out-of-doors building; if in a tree, the outer passage 
