202 
PARIM. 
these birds were in one season seen to watch and seize upon the 
bees issuing from their hives when they first began to stir about 
in spring. Vengeance was accordingly let loose upon them, and 
in the usual undiscriminating manner, from which the whole 
genus of tits suffered, although a very few individuals of the one 
species only were known to commit the crime. Shots were to be 
heard in all directions about the demesne, until the wrath of the 
owner was appeased by a considerable massacre having taken 
place. Here, also, the gardener, probably not without reason, 
accuses this species (which he distinguishes by the name of Billy- 
nipper) of being very destructive to peas. They are said to break 
through the pods with their strong bills, opposite the peas, and 
dislodge them. 
I have the excellent testimony of Miss Farrell of Balli- 
brado, county of Tipperary, to the fact of these birds breaking 
sound nuts with their bills, a feat frequently observed by this 
lady. Mr. Poole, too, remarks that they “ seem to derive consi- 
derable proportion of their autumn subsistence from the kernels 
of hazel-nuts. They may be heard at that season in every direction 
in a wood, hammering the nuts on the branches of the trees to 
break them, a difficult operation it would appear from the inces- 
sant labour necessary for the purpose.” Mr. C. R. Bree of Stow- 
market, has remarked of the blue tit (I presume), which is much 
less than the present species : — “ I have frequently seen the tomtit, 
which is a much smaller bird, with an infinitely more delicate beak 
than the nut-hatch, break the stones of the yew-berry and the 
haw. He carries the stone on to a convenient branch, where he 
fixes it with his claws, and then makes repeated and quick strokes 
upon it with his beak, exactly as f Sutor * has described, like the 
hammer of a blacksmith. * * * The bird makes by re- 
peated strokes a small hole in the stone, with the fine sharp point 
of its beak which then acts as a wedge, and the resistance is easily 
overcome.” * I have myself remarked the blue tit drive its bill 
like a pick-axe into a rotten portion of a tree, thus reminding me 
of a woodpecker. 
* Gardener’s Chronicle, July 18th, 1846, p. 480. 
