52 



BOTTLE TIT. 



it with a great number of soft feathers, so many, that I confess I could 

 not but admire how so small a room could hold them ; especially that 

 they could be laid so close and handsomely tog-ether, to afford sufficient 

 room for a bird with so long- a tail and so numerous an issue as this bird 

 commonly hath." A still more minute and correct description is given 

 by Aldrovand. " It was," says he, " of an oblong figure, like a pine- 

 apple ; of two ralms length, and one broad ; round, built of sundry 

 materials ; namely, both tree and earth moss, caterpillars' webs, and 

 other woolly-like matter and feathers, with that order and art, that the 

 chief and middle strength of the work or texture of the walls was of 

 that yellowish green moss, the common hairy moss, that silk-like sub- 

 stance, and tough threads, resembling those filaments suspended in the 

 air, and flying up and down like spiders' webs, which are accounted 

 signs of fair weather, connected and interwoven, or rather entangled so 

 firmly together, that they can hardly be plucked asunder. Of the interior 

 capacity, all the sides, it seemed, as well as the bottom, were covered and 

 lined with feathers, for the more soft and warm lying of the young. 

 The outmost superficies round about was fenced and strengthened with 

 fragments of that leafy moss which every where grows on trees firmly 

 bound together. In the fore part, respecting the sun-rise, and that 

 above, (where an arched roof, of the same uniform matter and texture 

 with the sides and bottom, covered the nest,) was seen a little hole, 

 scarce big enough, one would think, to admit the old one." 1 * 



Low situations seem to be its delight, especially about such trees and 

 hedges as are covered with white moss and lichen, amongst which it 

 most commonly places its nest. 



The egg is less than that of any British bird, except the gold-crested 

 wren, weighing about twelve grains ; colour white, sparingly marked 

 with small rust-coloured spots towards the larger end. We are 

 informed that this little creature will lay upwards of twenty eggs before 

 she sits ; but we have never been able to discover more than twelve, 

 and more frequently nine or ten. Even this is a surprising quantity 

 of prolific matter produced from so small a body in so short a space of 

 time as ten days, being equal to the weight of the bird. To supply this 

 great expenditure of animal matter, as well as the ordinary excretion, a 

 supply of food considerably more than its own weight is absolutely 

 necessary. 



*The young, after quitting the nest, continue with their parents during 

 autumn and winter, forming distinct families, which separate early in 



1 Aldrovandi Ornithologia, xvii. Architecture of Birds, p. 332. 



