52 
BOTTLE TIT. 
it with a great number of soft feathers, so many, that I confess 1 could 
not but admire how so small a room could hold them ; especially that 
they could be laid so close and handsomely together, to afford sufficient 
room for a bird with so long a tail and so numerous an issue as this bird 
commonly hath.” A still more minute and correct description is given 
by Aldrovand. “ It was,” says he, “ of an oblong figure, like a pine- 
apple ; of two ralms length, and one broad ; round, built of sundry 
materials ; namely, both tree and earth moss, caterpillars’ webs, and 
other woolly-like matter and feathers, wdth that order and art, that the 
chief and middle strength of the work or texture of the walls was of 
that yellowish green moss, the common hairy moss, that silk-like sub- 
stance, and tough threads, resemhling those filaments suspended in the 
air, and flying up and down like spiders’ webs, which are accounted 
signs of fair weather, connected and interwoven, or rather entangled so 
firmly together, that they can hardly be plucked asunder. Of the interior 
capacity, all the sides, it seemed, as well as the bottom, were covered and 
lined with feathers, for the more soft and warm lying of the young. 
The outmost superficies round about was fenced and strengthened with 
fragments of that leafy moss which every where grows on trees firmly 
bound together. In the fore part, respecting the sun-rise, and that 
above, (where an arched roof, of the same uniform matter and texture 
with the sides and bottom, covered the nest,) was seen a little hole, 
scarce big enough, one would think, to admit the old one.”^* 
Low situations seem to be its delight, especially about such trees and 
hedges as are covered with white moss and lichen, amongst which it 
most commonly places its nest. 
The egg is less than that of any British bird, except the gold-crested 
wren, weighing about twelve grains ; colour white, sparingly marked 
with small rust-coloured spots towards the larger end. We are 
informed that this little creature will lay upwards of twenty eggs before 
she sits ; but we have never been able to discover more than twelve, 
and more frequently nine or ten. Even this is a surprising quantity 
of prolific matter produced from so small a body in so short a space of 
time as ten days, being equal to the weight of the bird. To supply this 
great expenditure of animal matter, as well as the ordinary excretion, a 
supply of food considerably more than its own weight is absolutely 
necessary. 
*The young, after quitting the nest, continue with their parents during 
autumn and winter, forming distinct families, which separate early in 
Aldrovandi Ornithologia, xvii. Architecture of Birds, p. 332. 
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