108 



VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



BLUE TITMOUSE. 



Parus cceruleus, L. 



Not the least entertaining idiosyncrasy of the Blue Tit is that 

 of occasionally appropriating the nests of other birds. 1 Mr. F. 

 P. Johnson recently discovered a pair of these Titmice occupy- 

 ing the nest of a Greenfinch, in which the female Tit had laid 

 eleven eggs. The finches built a new nest near their original 

 habitation. Two careful observers, Mr. Plenderleath and Mr. A. 

 Smith, independently discovered two different couples of Blue 

 Tits occupying the nests of Hedge Sparrows. I examined the 

 nest of one pair, a typical nest of the Hedge Sparrow, built in a 

 hawthorn hedge at Castletown. T. C. Heysham found that a 

 pair of Blue Tits appropriated the nesting hole of a pair of Pied 

 Flycatchers. A note appeared some years ago of a Marsh Tit 

 which I happened to see hunting the lamp-posts at Oxford for 

 such insects as might chance to be resting on the glass panes. 

 The Blue Tit does the same. On November 5th, 1889, I spied 

 a Blue Titmouse alight on a lamp-post in Carlisle, and proceed 

 to scrutinise its four sides. Before the bird crossed the] road to 

 try another post, I saw him deliberately squint through the 

 round hole left for the gas-burner, in order to assure himself 

 that no insects were left lurking in the interior. In districts 

 where trees are scarce or absent, little parties of Blue Tits are 

 often to be seen flitting about the stone walls which replace the 

 hedgerows of the lower valleys. 



Order PASSERES. 



Fam. SITTIDjE. 



NUTHATCH. 



Sitta ccasia, Wolf. 



When calling on Turner, the Penrith bird-stuffer, on October 

 18th, 1848, Mr. T. C. Heysham was assured that the Nuthatch 

 had occurred on the banks of the Eamont, and was common 

 about Lowther. The Nuthatch has been reported to me once 



1 Readers interested in the vagaries of nesting birds should consult a 

 most interesting treatise by Dr. Paul Leverkiihn, entitled Fremde Eier im 

 Nest. 



