MARSH-TITMOUSE.— LONG-TAILED TITMOUSE. 89 



wood close to the ground^ or in holes in stumps but little 

 above itj in which it places a neatly built nest on chips of 

 wood, composed of hair and fur, and generally lined with 

 down of the willow, or the catkin of the balsam poplar. 



It has a lively note in the spring, but its commonest call 

 is well expressed in Yarrel^s ' British Birds ' (vol. i. p. 496) 

 by the syllables " peh ! peh ! " quickly repeated. 



LONG-TAILED TITMOUSE. 



Acredula caudata. 



Frequenting principally the woods, copses, and rough hedge- 

 rows in the enclosed portions of the county, this species is 

 not uncommonly met with, though it does not often visit 

 our shrubberies and gardens, except in the breeding-season. 

 During the rest of the year it roams about in little parties 

 of ten or a dozen, flitting through the underwoods, and 

 perching on them, in every possible position, as often as not 

 head downwards, and uttering a constant chirping note as 

 if to keep the little band together, meantime progressing 

 steadily through the woods and copses, searching for insects, 

 which seem to be its only food. 



Its well known and very remarkable nest is generally 

 placed in a thick bush, and is composed externally of lichens 

 firmly woven into a compact mass with spiders' webs, most 

 artfully blended with the colour of its surroundings, and 

 lined with a great profusion of feathers. It is, however, 

 not unfrequently built at the divarication of two nearly 

 parallel lichen-covered stems of a tree, and sometimes as 

 high as twenty or thirty feet from the ground, and so con- 

 cealed that it is hardly likely to be discovered unless the 



