66 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
human cannibals, a feast of this kind is an occa- 
sional unpleasant luxury rather than a daily 
practice, and his depredations upon green peas and 
the young buds of fruit-trees are, as a rule, the 
extreme limit of his iniquities in diet. He also 
destroys an immense quantity of harmful insects, 
especially caterpillars, for his young, at the time 
in May and June when caterpillars are most innu- 
merable. The Great Tit is of course resident 
throughout the year, like all his family. His 
clear, see-saw, " saw-sharpening," spring cry is 
heard in mild weather very early in the year. 
He sometimes begins to nest early in April, but 
more commonly near the end of it. The general 
nesting-place is a hole in a tree or wall, but his 
taste for holes of any kind sometimes leads him to 
build in the most extraordinary places, such as a 
pump, a lamp-post, a letter-box, or a flower-pot 
lying upside down. The nest is a plentiful heap 
of moss, hair, and wool, packed in to fit the hole, 
with the moss as the lowest layer, and in a hollow 
in this warm cushion six or seven eggs are usually 
laid, though as many as a dozen have been known. 
Like all the Tits', they are white, spotted and 
freckled with light vermilion red, and slightly 
smaller than the Hedge-sparrow's or Robin's. 
Their larger size distinguishes them clearly from 
those of the next three species, though they are 
