TOM TIT. 



513 



as well as the farm-yard, being partial to oats, which it plucks out, and 

 retiring- to a neighbouring bush, fixes the grain between its claws, and 

 hammers it with the bill, to break the husk. In the summer, insects 

 are its chief food, in search of which it plucks off a number of young 

 buds from fruit and other trees. The nest is always made in some hole, 

 either of a tree or wall, composed of moss, and lined with feathers and 

 hair. 



The bill of this bird, though short, is exceedingly strong ; and from 

 the active industry of its habits, I have little doubt that when it cannot 

 find a hole suitable for its nest, it either hews out one, or enlarges it to 

 its mind. In one of these nests, which I lately examined, in the hole 

 of an oak at Shooter's Hill, in Kent, the wood, which was indeed de- 

 cayed and soft, had evidently been cut away so as to give an upward 

 winding entrance to the nest ; and I have remarked a similar winding 

 either upwards or on one side, in the nests of this bird, built in old stone 

 walls, mortar or small stones having probably been removed with this 

 design. The power of its bill in such cases, I had an opportunity of 

 witnessing, in one which was kept in a cage. In a common wire cage 

 it could not be confined for many minutes, as it always warped the 

 wires aside, first with its bill, and then with its body, till it got out ; 

 but it did not find it so easy to escape from a cage made with netted wax 

 thread, upon finding which unmanageable, it attacked the wood work, 

 and into one of the dove-tailings of this it thrust its bill, acting with 

 it in the manner of a wedge. It was unsuccessful indeed in unhinging 

 this, but I have no doubt that half the force and skill which it exhi- 

 bited, would have proved sufficient to hew out a nest-hole in a decayed 

 tree.* 1 



The eggs are six or seven in number, rarely eight, white, speckled 

 with rust-colour at the larger end ; their weight is seventeen grains. 

 It has been said that this bird will sometimes lay as many as twenty 

 eggs in the same nest ; but this is certainly an error, for in the great 

 abundance of nests we have seen, with eggs and young, never more 

 than eight were found. The female is tenacious of her nest, and will 

 often suffer herself to be taken rather than quit it, and will frequently 

 return again, after being taken out. Upon such an occasion it menaces 

 the invader in a singular manner, erecting all its feathers, and hissing 

 like a snake, or uttering a noise like the spitting of a cat, and if handled, 

 bites severely. It has no song, but makes a shrill chirping noise, 

 quickly repeated. It is found in every part of Europe. 



1 Architecture of Birds. Chap, on Carpenter Birds, p. 134. 

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