202 PARID.E. 



these birds were in one season seen to watch and seize upon the 

 bees issuing from their hives when they first began to stir about 

 in spring. "Vengeance was accordingly let loose upon them, and 

 in the usual undiscriminating manner, from which the whole 

 genus of tits suffered, although a very few individuals of the one 

 species only were known to commit the crime. Shots were to be 

 heard in all directions about the demesne, until the wrath of the 

 owner was appeased by a considerable massacre having taken 

 place. Here, also, the gardener, probably not without reason, 

 accuses this species (which he distinguishes by the name of Billy- 

 nipper) of being very destructive to peas. They are said to break 

 through the pods with their strong bills, opposite the peas, and 

 dislodge them. 



I have the excellent testimony of Miss Farrell of Balli- 

 brado, county of Tipperary, to the fact of these birds breaking 

 sound nuts with their bills, a feat frequently observed by this 

 lady. Mr. Poole, too, remarks that they " seem to derive consi- 

 derable proportion of their autumn subsistence from the kernels 

 of hazel-nuts. They may be heard at that season in every direction 

 in a wood, hammering the nuts on the branches of the trees to 

 break them, a difficult operation it would appear from the inces- 

 sant labour necessary for the purpose." Mr. C. E. Bree of Stow- 

 market, has remarked of the bine tit (I presume), which is much 

 less than the present species : — " I have frequently seen the tomtit, 

 which is a much smaller bird, with an infinitely more delicate beak 

 than the nut-hatch, break the stones of the yew-berry and the 

 haw. He carries the stone on to a convenient branch, where he 

 fixes it with his claws, and then makes repeated and quick strokes 

 upon it with his beak, exactly as ' Sutor ' has described, like the 

 hammer of a blacksmith. * * * The bird makes by re- 

 peated strokes a small hole in the stone, with the fine sharp point 

 of its beak which then acts as a wedge, and the resistance is easily 

 overcome." * I have myself remarked the blue tit drive its bill 

 like a pick-axe into a rotten portion of a tree, thus reminding me 

 of a woodpecker. 



* Gardener's Chronicle, July 18th, 1846, p. 480. 



