176



Sir Roland Corbet,



keets, Cutthroats, Nuns, Spice Birds, Green Avadavats and Diamond

Sparrows.


These two lists about exhaust my own experience, and I wish

to draw upon the experience of others. Information of this kind

can hardly fail to be generally useful and may prevent the sacrifice

of little lives in experimenting.


[Perhaps some members will kindly respond to Mr. Lockyer’s

suggestion with regard to a list of hardy seed-eaters.—E d.]



RANDOM NOTES ON CRESTED TITS

AND OTHER WILD BIRDS.


By Sir Roland Corbet.


It may interest our members to have some short notes on a

few species which have come under my notice in Scotland and

elsewhere.


I might commence with the Crested Tit (Pants cristatus )

which I was able to observe in the Spey Valley, when I took down a

few details as to their nesting and breeding. These birds only build

in tree stumps that are quite rotten and very easy to peck a hole in.

Consequently these attractive little Tits can only find suitable nest¬

ing places in a few spots where old natural fir-woods are to be found.

All down the Spey Valley woods of this kind are numerous, and thus

it is that these birds especially collect there for their nesting.


They seem to be slightly on the increase, which is surprising,

as many eggs and nests are taken every year by so-called ‘ natural¬

ists.’ In Morris’s “British Birds” it states that two were killed

near the River Spey. The year I was along that valley, in all

probability quite twenty pairs were breeding on the hill side where I

found two nests, for I myself saw four pairs, and in these dense

woods they would very easily pass unnoticed.


In my notes I recorded as follows: — “ A nest consisted of a

foundation of moss, lined profusely with rabbit’s fur, no other

material being used, and was placed in the rotten stump of an old

fir tree about three feet from the ground; the hole having been

bored by the birds themselves by pecking away the decayed wood.



