250 On the Habits of the Ox-Eye. By James Wood. 



(6.) The Pin- tail Duck (Dafrla acuta.) 

 A specimen of this bird was shot in the Tyne Estuary, on the 17th of 

 February last, about nine o'clock at night by George Thomson, labourer, 

 Dunbar, from whom I procured it. The wind at the time was easterly and 

 the weather unsettled, with occasional snow-showers. The bird was flying 

 alone when shot. Several shore-shooters on being shown the bird wei'e 

 unable to identify it, never having seen any of the species before. Turnbull 

 (" Birds of Bast Lothian, 1867") says it is of rare occurrence on this coast, 

 in ("Gray Birds of Scotland,") mentions having shot a pair (females) out 

 of a flock near Dunbar, where he bad seen them two nights before. He 

 also mentions its occurrence, on the authority of Mr Angus, in Aberdeen- 

 shire in 1866. He also says that it is a scarce species in the western 

 counties. 



On the Habits of the Ox-Eye (Parus coeruleus) when 

 feeding its Young. By James Wood. 



At the risk of stating what may already be well-known to most naturalists, 

 I think it may not be altogether out of place to state my observations on a 

 pair of Blue Tom Tits, which had their nest in my garden in June last, ex- 

 actly in the same place where they had it last year, in a small aperture in 

 one of the steps of the stair. During the process of incubation the male 

 bird only was seen, always hovering about in the near neighbourhood of 

 the nest ; but immediately afterwards both male and female were con- 

 tinuously on the wing from 4 o'clock a.m. till 7.30 in the evening, or for 

 15£ hours every day busily engaged in feeding their young, and this they 

 continued for 15 days, when the brood left the nest to fend for themselves. 

 During these 15 days, which were warm, I found that the parent birds 

 left and returned to the nest three times each, every five minutes. 



They had a regular method in the feeding of the young birds, and did 

 not go at random and return with a caterpillar, then with an insect, and 

 then with a caterpillar again, but continued for a considerable time to 

 bring caterpillars only, and then for an equal length of time insects only, 

 both parent birds adopting the same course at the same time — that is, when 

 one bird brought caterpillars, so did the other, and thus was the diet of the 

 young birds varied from caterpillars to insects, and from insects to cater- 

 pillars, with the utmost regularity, and this plan they pursued with the 

 greatest assiduity, the whole 15 days from the time they were hatched till 

 the time they left the nest. 



Now to take 15^ hours as the length of the working day of the bird, I 

 find that each left and l'eturned to the nest 558 times every day, and to 

 take the half of this time to be devoted to the procuring of caterpillars, 

 and the other half to that of insects, in fifteen days the brood of young 

 Tom Tits consumed no less than 8370 caterpillars, Avith an equal number 

 of insects. 



