252 BIRD WATCHING 



afterwards picked up several which were marked with 

 little pits round the base, where it had joined the 

 stalk, difficult to attribute to squirrels, and suggest- 

 ing that the birds had severed them in this way, and 

 not yet proceeded farther. 



If the coal-tit does this, then it seems likely that 

 the great-tit does so also, in which case his extract- 

 ing the seeds from the larger cones of exotic firs 

 would be only what one might expect. The coal-tit, 

 too, ascends the trunks of trees — Scotch fir-trees 

 especially — in the same fluttering way as does the 

 blue-tit, but perhaps still more deftly, in search of 

 insects, and often, as one watches him, a flake of the 

 bark that he has detached comes fluttering down. 

 The golden-crested wren may do the same, but I 

 have been more struck by the way in which this 

 little bird flies about amidst the pine-trees, from one 

 needle-bunch to another. He hangs from them head 

 downwards, but often, before clinging amongst them, 

 flutters just above or, sometimes, just below them. 

 In the latter case it seems as though the needles 

 were flowers, and that he was probing them with 

 his bill, whilst hanging in the air like a humming- 

 bird ; and this, amidst the dark pines and, especially, 

 on a gloomy winter's day, is odd to see. Often he 

 flits down from his pine-needles into the coarse, tufty 

 grass just bounding the plantation, bustles and fairy- 

 fusses there for a little, then is up again amongst his 

 needles, pecking the frost from them. For this is 

 what it looks like, that seems to be the meal he 

 is making, though, surely, it must really be some- 

 thing more substantial — if " meal " and " substantial " 

 are words that can be properly used in respect of a 



