FIELD NOTES. 377 



cleared space is circular, and almost as large as a saucer, with a 

 new-laid dropping in it to leave no room for doubt. Carefully 

 examining it, I find two little fresh green vegetable substances, 

 some rabbit-dung — but only one pellet looks as if it had had a 

 slight peck — a weevil about the size of a small fly, and another 

 minute coleopterous insect. The weevil is at first either torpid 

 or feigning death — probably the latter, as many weevils do (or 

 appear to do) this — but he soon becomes active. This gives a 

 hint as to the food of Blackbirds on cold, frosty days in mid- 

 winter — by inference of other birds too, but not many are such 

 burro wers. 



" Chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi," as the Blue Tit says — for that 

 is one of his notes. I see him now clinging to the trunk of a 

 fir-tree, which is the first time I have since my last entry of it in 

 October. He does not, however, either ascend or descend the 

 trunk, as on that occasion, but, after clinging a moment, flies 

 on to a bough. Others are hanging on the under sides of the 

 fir-cones, pecking at them and at the fir-needles, often fluttering, 

 on a little whirr of wings, just above a bunch of these, before dis- 

 appearing amongst them. Long-tailed Tits, too, are hopping 

 about in the top twigs of some tall slender oaks — the oaks in 

 this fir-plantation are, like the firs, tall and slender — hanging 

 head downwards from the twigs. A Robin flies to a large Scotch 

 fir, and clings to the trunk ; remains there a few seconds, then 

 flies down to the ground near its base, from there fits up again 

 and clings some two or three feet from the ground ; then an 

 encore, as if he had known what I wanted, and so flies off. 



Hooded Crows seem to dig a little in the ground for food, as 

 do Rooks, though nothing like to the same extent. They both 

 walk and hop — as do Rooks — but they hop more than Rooks 

 do. Several I am watching now, have, I am sure, hopped, where 

 Rooks would have walked. These Crows are funny birds. When 

 one flies away from another, this latter, two or three times, lowers 

 his head to the ground, and up again, each time that he lowers 

 it uttering a low, deep note, like " croo, croo." When rejoined 

 by his companion, he again makes his two or three bows, but I 

 now hear no note, so that it must either have been absent or 

 lower. Now when this bird, after being again left alone, rose 

 and flew to some trees, uttering his " crar, crar," a number of 

 Zool. Mh ser. vol. VII., October, 1903. 2 g 



