206 PARIDiE. 



So that there were but two inferences, either that the little archi- 

 tect had built her nest, and laid her eggs in the interval, or else 

 that the man had c told the lie direct/ — an amusing instance of a 

 liar being convicted by the mute testimony of a tomtit." 



The titmouse often falls a victim to most unpardonable igno- 

 rance in this country, as well as in England, in consequence of 

 the injury it is supposed to do to fruit trees. When in the very 

 act of saving the buds, by picking away from them the insects 

 bent on their destruction, and which man himself with all his 

 power could not destroy, this poor bird is "savagely slaugh- 

 tered." Mr. Selby most justly pleads in favour of its being a 

 friend rather than an enemy to the horticulturist ; and Mr. Knapp, 

 treating of the species very fully in his most agreeable manner, is 

 indignant that it should in these days be ranked as vermin, and a 

 reward be offered for its head. Thanks to Mr. Weir we have some 

 idea of the vast amount of good done by these birds in the 

 destruction of caterpillars, when they have young. This gentleman 

 with extraordinary patience, watched for seventeen hours suc- 

 cessively how often a pair fed their nestlings, and ascertained it to 

 be four hundred and seventy-five times ; they appeared to be fed 

 solely on caterpillars : " sometimes they brought in a single large 

 one ; at other times two or three small ones." (Macgillivray's Brit. 

 Bird, vol. ii. p. 438.) The stomachs of a number of specimens 

 sent to me during different years by bird preservers, from Decem- 

 ber to March inclusive, contained the remains of coleopterous and 

 other insects, and very few of them, any vegetable food, as seeds, 

 &c. ; there was no sand or fragment of stone in any of them. 



I have remarked tin's species in Holland, Prance, Switzerland, 

 &c, to be about as plentiful as in the British Islands. 



THE MAESH TIT. 



Par us palustris, Linn. 



Is very little known as an Irish species, but has been 



met in the north, centre (as to latitude), and south. 



In Smith's History of the County of Cork it is remarked, 



