On 
4 
Crested Tit, I climbed up and soon had the eggs out. The nest consisted of a foundation of 
green moss well lined with wool and feathers, was loosely and not very well built, and contained 
five fresh eggs, one of which was damaged by a chip in cutting out the nest. During the time 
occupied in taking the nest, and when I was seated at the foot of the tree packing the eggs into 
my collecting-box, the bird never left the immediate neighbourhood. 
‘Tater in the same day I found another nest, placed in a hole high up in a white beech tree, 
having noticed the bird slip out as our man tapped the trunk of the tree with his axe. Here the 
nest-hole was in a branch of the tree so rotten that it could in places be picked away with the 
fingers; so, as it would not bear any of us, a small boy who had joined us volunteered to take it, 
and succeeded in doing so in safety. This nest was similar in structure and materials to the former 
one, and also contained five eggs slightly incubated; thus this number would probably not have 
been added to. Seidensacher tells me, however, that the full complement is generally from six 
to eight, though Naumann states that it lays as many as ten eggs. 
« After taking this nest Seidensacher and I sat down to rest, whilst our man went off to see 
a nest of Picus major, which the boy said he could show us; and as we were sitting there we 
observed both the Crested Tits come back to examine their now desolate dwelling-place. One of 
them went into the hole and carried off a feather, probably to some hole in a tree close by, as 
she soon returned for another, and, I suppose, was already making arrangements for a fresh 
habitation.” 
The eggs out of the first nest above referred to, together with eight others taken also near 
Cilli by Mr. Seidensacher, and now in the collection of Mr. Dresser, we have lying before us. In 
length they vary from 7§ to $$ of an inch, and in width measure half an inch, and are pure 
white, spotted all over, and chiefly at the larger end, with bright red. They most resemble eggs 
of the Marsh Tit, but are more spotted than any of these we have seen. Indeed they are nearly 
as much spotted as many Creepers’ eggs. 
Our friend Mr. F. Bond has kindly furnished us with the following extract of a letter to him 
from Mr. C. Thusnall, of Whittlesford, respecting the nidification of the Crested Titmouse, viz.:— 
“JT had frequent opportunities of seeing the Crested Tit in a very large Scotch fir plantation 
on the Carr Bridge Moor, in Morayshire, and I do not recollect seeing any other trees growing 
there, except a few small birches. The habits of this Tit are exactly the same as those of the 
Little Bluecap, except that it is not quite so active in its movements. I have generally seen 
them in the top boughs of the firs; but they frequently come on to the ground, apparently to 
pick up a seed that may drop from the fir-cones; at any rate you see them fly down, look in the 
grass, and fly up again immediately. They appear to remain in families, as you seldom see a 
single one. Asa rule they prefer the rotten stem of a fir, about twelve or fourteen feet high 
(there are scores of such stumps standing in the wood, the wind having broken the trees off at 
that height), and bore a hole in the tree from two feet to eight feet above the ground. I have 
also found the nests in old stumps of very large trees within six inches of the ground. Their 
nidification is therefore more like that of the Cole Tit in that respect. You will wonder at six 
inches of a large fir tree being left out of the ground; but the Scotch, although a careful race, 
are very wasteful in their fir trees, as when they cut them down they do not stoop as we do, but 
merely cut the tree off at from eighteen inches to two feet above the level of the soil.” 
