The Bush-Tit 
159 
mansion. I once watched a pair of these tiny creatures lay the foundation 
for a typical, long-pocket nest ; I say, lay the foundation, but really the 
Bush-tit does not follow our ideas of architecture, for he shingles the 
roof first and puts in his uprights and his floor-joists last. 
After the pair of lovers had selected a site for a home in a hemlock- 
tree, they began weaving in some cross-pieces between the twigs. Then 
they left a place for a round doorway, and began 
weaving the walls of moss, fibers, and lichens. This t^h^Nest 
was to be the hallway down to the main living-room. 
The outline of the long pocket was built, and then filled out from the 
inside. The feather-lining was added last, and this required a great 
amount of hunting. When one of the Tits came with a feather, he 
would pop down into the nest, and the whole structure would shake and 
bulge, as the little fellow fitted in the material ; then out he would come 
to continue the hunt. It seemed as if they would never get enough 
feathers ; for, even after some of the pure white eggs were laid, when- 
ever in their travels the pair would run across a feather back they would 
come and add it to their bed. 
In some parts of Oregon, where the moss hangs in long bunches on 
the limbs of trees, the Bush-tit utilizes this as a natural beginning for a 
nest. I saw one of these birds get inside a long piece of moss and weave 
it into the wall of the nest. At another time, I saw a Bush-tit’s nest that 
was twenty inches long. The little weavers had begun their home on a 
limb, but evidently it was not low enough to suit them, for they made a 
fibrous strap ten inches long and swung their gourd-shaped nest to that, 
letting the nest hang in a bunch of willow leaves. 
I never had a good idea of the amount of insect-food a Bush-tit con- 
sumed until I watched a pair of these birds a few days after the eggs were 
hatched. Both birds fed in turn, and the turns averaged about five min- 
utes apart during a large part of the day. The parents were busy from 
dawn till dark. They searched the leaves and twigs, the branches and 
trunks of every tree. They hunted through bushes, and grasses, and 
ferns, and food seemed to be abundant. Sometimes they brought cater- 
pillars, moths, and daddy-long-legs, that one could see, and again they 
brought bills full of larvae and scale-insects that one could not recognize 
because they were so minute. One pair of Bush-tits about a locality 
means the destruction of an untold number of insect- 
pests. If we could estimate the amount of insects de- Insect- 
stroyed by all the birds about any one spot we should 
find it enormous. Without the help of these assistant gardeners, at work 
early and late and constantly at it, bushes and trees would soon be leafless. 
The Bush-tit does not possess the aerial grace of a swallow, or even 
the nimbleness of a warbler. He bustles along in such a jerky way that 
often he looks as if he would topple heels over head, and go whirling to 
the ground like a tailless kite. He is not so successful a wing-shot as 
is a flycatcher, but in stalking he has an eye that few birds can equal. 
Prof. F. E. L. Beal, of the Biological Survey, has made a careful study 
