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his experience goes, “ distributed generally over Scotland in suitable localities. In April 1867, 
I received a nest of this species from Dr. Brotherstone, of Alloa, built in a whinbush, as also the 
bird, which had become entangled amongst the materials of its nest and been strangled by a 
single horsehair.” : 
During the summer season these birds are scattered about in pairs in the woodlands and 
groves, where they breed; but so soon as the young are fledged these latter accompany their 
parents in their autumnal wanderings; and small families of this lovely little Titmouse are often 
seen in company with other Titmice and Golden-crested Wrens. They are active and restless, 
move about from branch to branch, flitting with great celerity, and clinging to the twigs in 
every posture. When going from tree to tree they fly hurriedly with a succession of jerks, 
their long tail giving them rather a peculiar appearance. Its call-note is loud and shrill, 
resembling that of the Blue Titmouse; and when moving about in the tops of the high trees it 
calls incessantly. When one flies off from a tree-top, uttering its loud pleasant note, it is 
speedily followed by the rest of the party. arly in the spring they disperse, and each pair 
seeks for a suitable locality to attend to the serious business of nidification. ‘The nest, which 
is a most artistic structure, is placed amongst the branches of a tree or shrub, or sometimes 
against the trunk of a large tree at the junction of a branch; it is of an oval form, composed 
of Hypna carefully woven together with the fine shreds of plants, covered with small pieces of 
grey lichens, and carefully lined with feathers. Macgillivray gives the number of feathers in 
one nest as 2579, no small number for these small birds to collect together to form a soft bed 
for their offspring. 
Macgillivray gives a most excellent account of the construction of a nest of this bird, 
communicated to him by Mr. Weir, which we cannot do better than copy as follows:— 
«<«Boghead, llth of May, 1839.—About seven o'clock on Saturday morning, the 20th of 
April, I had the pleasure of observing a pair of these active and interesting little birds, the 
Long-tailed Titmice, lay the foundation of their nest, in the cleft of an old ash tree, at the 
distance of about fifty yards from my garden. Before they commenced their operations, they 
flew in and out again and again, and examined the situation with the greatest attention. The 
underpart of their abode was constructed with mosses, and the sides with small portions of the 
white and grey tree-lichens, fine green mosses, some feathers, and a few leaves of the beech tree, 
beautifully intermixed and firmly interwoven with wool and the webs of spider’s eggs. To give 
these materials the requisite solidity, they pressed them down with their breasts and the 
shoulders of their wings, and turned their bodies round upon them in all directions. When I 
first began to observe their motions, they seemed to be much displeased, and set up a strong 
clicking noise not unlike that of the Stonechat; but they soon became so tame that, although 
I placed myself at no great distance from them, my presence gave them but little annoyance. 
When the male was at work, the female usually remained upon a branch of the tree, about a 
foot from the nest, until he was done; she then completed her task. They then flew off together 
in search of materials, sometimes to a considerable distance, flitting through the air with the 
rapidity of an arrow. 
““¢On Thursday forenoon, between ten and eleven o'clock, the outside of the nest having 
been, after much labour, completed, they commenced lining it with a great variety of feathers, 
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