BLUE TITMOUSE.— COAL-TITMOUSE. 87 



of a hole in a lamp-post in Montpellier Road, Brighton, and^ 

 not-withstanding the constant traffic, brought off their young 

 in safety. 



It is largely represented when a number of small birds are 

 making their excursions together through the woods in 

 winter. In the spring it picks to pieces the green fruit- 

 buds, and is hated by the gardener, though probably it does 

 less damage than would have been done by the caterpillar 

 of which it is in search. 



COAL-TITMOUSE. 



Parus ater. 



Though this species is by no means rare in the Weald, it is 

 far less abundant than either of the preceding, and in my 

 own garden I have not very often seen it, yet in July 1889 a 

 nearly fully fledged young one was found dead in a box I had 

 placed in a tree ; and in the winter of the same year two of 

 these birds were eating the seeds of an Arbor vita close to 

 my dining-room window, and pecking at some bacon which 

 I had hung up in it. I have seen it busily feeding on the 

 seeds of the cornflower {Centaurea cyanus). It is very 

 partial to fir-trees, and is certainly more common on the 

 sand than on the clay. I have never met with it in the 

 thickest parts of the forest, though I have occasionally seen 

 it on the outer trees. In the neighbourhood of Chichester 

 it is rather common, as also on the sands, and old fir-trees 

 of Parham. The favourite place for its nest is in the de- 

 serted hole of a mole, or a mouse, at the foot of a tree ; but 

 it sometimes places it in a hole in the trunk of a tree at 

 some distance from the ground. At Henfield, a pair brought 



