THE TITMICE 261 



the little pugnacious fellow will rush at him furiously, till 

 his noisy cries bring other day-birds fluttering round, and 

 the owl is mobbed. 



Except the Long-tailed Tit, every British sjoecies of 

 Tit builds its nest in holes in trees. Usually a hole is 

 chosen that needs no preparation, but the bird's strong 

 beak finds no difliculty in widening or deepening the 

 hollow, should that be needful. 



As most of you know, the Tits in a garden can easily 

 be persuaded to make use of nesting-boxes fixed up in trees. 

 A cocoanut with a round hole in the side, and all the 

 inside scooped out, or a box of a similar size and with a 

 round opening — that is the kind of house they seem to 

 prefer. 



But the number and variety of strange jDlaces in which 

 Titmice have been found nesting can hardly be told. In 

 this respect they are like the robins. At Ulverston, the 

 head of a mop that had been left leaning against the wall, 

 in the back -yard of a lodge, was used ; the owner was 

 careful not to disturb the tiny builders, and in due course 

 four little chirping Tits filled the oddly-placed nest. 



At Buxted, in Sussex, two letter-boxes (fortunately 

 belonging to the house of a bird-lover) were occupied year 

 after year by Blue Tits. Says the owner, Mr. A. L. 

 Hussey : " The nest is curiously large for so small a bird. 

 First there is a foundation, about two and a half inches 

 thick, of brush-wood, quite filling the square box, then 

 comes a layer of moss, and lastly a soft and rounded bed 

 made of donkey's hair, feathers, and rabbit's down." 



Other queer places in which a Tit's nest has been found 

 include the spout of a rain-water pipe, the weathercock on 

 a tall spire, the hat of a scarecrow, a bee-hive (with the 

 bees in it), a disused pumj), a large flower-pot, a slender- 



