80 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
and crevices in walls and trees. The places it 
selects are generally casual cracks and fissures, rather 
than the snug, tight holes which appeal to most 
other birds. The commonest place of all is, 
perhaps, behind a sheet of bark, where it has 
decayed and come away from the tree ; it also 
builds in other crevices in dead or living trees, in 
the crannies between an ivy-stem and the trunk, in 
cracks of walls, and between the slates and tiles of 
outhouses. The nest is always a rather slight, soft 
structure, and in this last situation I have known it 
to be no more than a semi-circle, or half-nest, of 
straws, moss, and cobweb, barely sufficient to 
prevent the eggs rolling away down the slope. In 
other situations there is generally a loose founda- 
tion of small twigs, chips, and bits of soft bark 
beneath the finer lining. Six to eight eggs are 
usually laid, which are sometimes not very easy to 
distinguish from those of the Marsh or Cole Tits, 
being white, spotted with red and purple. But as 
a rule they are smaller, and flat-topped rather than 
perfectly oval in shape ; while the spots are darker 
in colour, with a purple admixture which the Tits' 
eggs have not, as well as being generally a good 
deal thicker and more clotted in appearance, and 
often coagulated into a dense cap or ring. 
