I lO 
INCIDENTS IN HAMPSHIRE BIRD- LIFE. 
HEARD one autumn day a sharp tapping sound out- 
side the sitting-room window, and, on finding the noise 
was caused by a blue-tit extracting the kernel of a sun- 
flower seed, I determined, if possible, by means of this 
favourite food, to induce him and others to feed regularly at 
the window. I tied ripened heads of sunflowers to a wire 
arch fixed over this window, and had soon attracted a large 
party of several sorts of tits. We have now erected a sort of 
trellis work of canes across the window about seventeen inches 
from the glass, and from this we suspend coco-nuts sawn in 
half, pieces of fat, strings of filbert kernels, &c. In the winter 
we often have as many as twenty birds feeding together. Our 
visitors (principally tits, great, blue, marsh and cole) are very 
numerous. At one time we had two pairs of great, three of 
blue, two of marsh, and one of cole, seven greenfinches, one cock 
chaffinch, an occasional nuthatch, robin, wren and thrush, also 
a special favourite, a blackbird whose identity is unmistakable, 
he having some years ago lost most of his feathers and part of his 
skin in a fray with a cat, the scars of which fight are left for life. 
Wishing that some of our feathered friends would nest close 
by I tied to the arch a small deal box, in which I had drilled 
two holes for entrances ; it is less than eighteen inches from the 
window, and well within sight of persons in the room. This 
plain structure was too unlike the real thing, so the following 
spring I fastened round the box some pieces of rough fir bark, 
and for three years in succession a pair of blue-tits have built 
their nest and reared their brood. V^'hilst building I could not 
discover that Mr. Tom-tit did any of the work ; he would sit 
on the canes and eat and scold while his mate came with 
mouthfuls of building material, moss, hairs, &c. As soon as 
the young were hatched both parents fed the nestlings all day 
long. I wish gardeners and others who unjustly condemn so 
many of our small birds could have seen the hundreds of cater- 
pillars those little creatures took daily to their brood. 
Two years the young were hatched and taken away un- 
disturbed, but this year, feeling my friends knew me well enough 
to trust me, I took down the nest on three separate occasions 
and on opening the side of the box discovered nine young ones. 
So far from resenting this interference the old birds were close 
at hand watching, each with a caterpillar in its beak, and 
immediately the nest was replaced they flew in to supply the 
interrupted meal. These also got safely away, and for some 
time we saw nothing more of the birds, old or young ; the old 
ones have now returned to their former haunt. 
A curious difference between the habits of these and of the 
great tits is that the latter bring their young to the window from 
their nest in a hollow tree stump near by (I know they have 
nested here two years following) as soon as the coast is clear of 
