80 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



One or two of the Titmice are in the habit of making their 

 nests in similar situations. The Cole Tit (Parus ater) will 

 always take advantage of hollow places, though it is perfectly 

 capable of building a nest among the dense underwood, and its 

 habitation may be mostly found in such localities. Young fir 

 plantations are favourite resorts of this bird, which finds a con 

 genial resting-place among the low, horizontal branches. 



In Mudie's " Feathered Tribes of the British Islands," there is 

 a brief and valuable summary of the bird-attracting powers of 

 the fir in its different stages of development. " In a fir planta- 

 tion, which is neither so low as to partake of the mushroom 

 growth of pines (especially Firms sylvestris) upon too rich soils, 

 nor too inland and upland, there is a succession of birds. Linnets 

 and other brake-birds come to them as long as they are mere 

 bushes ; but the note of the cuckoo is not heard in them. After 

 a while the Cole Tit becomes one of their most plentiful inhabi- 

 tants ; and by that time the cuckoo perches and sings on the 

 margin. A few years longer, and the ringdove moans in the tops 

 of the trees, which have then begun to open towards the surface 

 of the ground, and the covers for the brake-birds, and resting- 

 places for all birds that build hideling and near the earth, are 

 gone. The cuckoo is then heard less frequently, unless there are 

 coppices of deciduous trees, or young pines come up in succession, 

 in the vicinity. If the trees form a belt between rich grounds, 

 the magpie, though he loves the ' home ' trees better, will some- 

 times come, a little after the woodpigeon ; and if the plantation 

 is deep and secluded, the jay will, perhaps, come a little earlier. 

 To all these succeeds the rook, which nestles in the mature 

 trees, with the long boles clear of branches, and he quits them 

 not until they are cut down or perish in the lapse of time." 



In my note-book there is a sketch of a curious habitation 

 occupied by a Cole Tit. One of the large trees at Walton Hall 

 had been infested by the fungus, which has already been men- 

 tioned, and had broken asunder some eighteen or twenty feet 

 from the ground. Several spots where these fungi had softened 

 the wood were excavated by Mr. Waterton, in order to make 

 nesting-places for various birds. In such spots the owls come 

 and breed, and so do the jackdaws, starlings, and other birds. 

 To one of these cavities Mr. Waterton fitted a door, composed of 

 bai'k, and in the upper part of tlie door, he cut a little circular 



