PARUS C^RULEUS, Linn- 



(Blue Titmouse.) 



The Tom-Tit of country people. " In former times, in compliment to the 

 great Saint Thomas-a-Becket, Tom was a more common name than now. 

 We have Tom Tit, Tom cat, Tom foolery, Tom boy, Tommy shop, Tommy 

 (slang for bread), double Tom (a sort of plough), Tom the piper (in the 

 morris dance), Tom Tiddler, Tom of Bedlam, Tom of Westminster (a bell), 

 Tom and Jerry, Tom Tell-truth, Tom Hick-a-thrift, Tom (the knave of 

 trumps), Whipping Tom (an itinerant flogger of wandering maids), Tom 

 Tapster, &c." ('History of Sign-boards,' by Jacob Larwood and John 

 Camden Hotten, p. 397). 



June 4, 1858. To-day saw a nest of a Blue Tit, containing six eggs much 

 incubated, on the bough of a fir tree. It was a plain open nest, like that of 

 any other bird. Holes are scarce, which I take to be the cause of this 

 divergence from the usual habit. The number of green caterpillars I have 

 seen a pair of these Tits bring to their young in a quarter of an hour is 

 incredible. A very interesting example in cahology is a nest in my own 

 collection of the Blue Titmouse, with eight eggs, formed in the bottom of a 

 Blackbird's. 



ALAUDA ARVENSIS, Linn. 



(Sky-Lark.) 



Under this species it might be convenient to say something on migration 

 and movement of birds. 



J 



