TOM TIT. 
513 
as well as the farm-yard, being partial to oats, which it plucks out, and 
retiring- to a neighbouring bush, fixes the grain between its claws, and 
hammers it with the bill, to break the husk. In the summer, insects 
are its chief food, in search of which it plucks off a number of young- 
buds from fruit and other trees. The nest is always made in some hole, 
either of a tree or wall, composed of moss, and lined with feathers and 
hair. 
The bill of this bird, though short, is exceedingly strong ; and from 
the active industry of its habits, I have little doubt that when it cannot 
find a hole suitable for its nest, it either hews out one, or enlarges it to 
its mind. In one of these nests, which I lately examined, in the hole 
of an oak at Shooter’s Hill, in Kent, the wood, which was indeed de- 
cayed and soft, had evidently been cut away so as to give an upward 
winding entrance to the nest ; and I have remarked a similar winding 
either upwards or on one side, in the nests of this bird, built in old stone 
walls, mortar or small stones having probably been removed with this 
design. The power of its bill in such cases, I had an opportunity of 
witnessing, in one which was kept in a cage. In a common wire cage 
it could not be confined for many minutes, as it always warped the 
wires aside, first with its bill, and then with its body, till it got out ; 
but it did not find it so easy to escape from a cage made with netted wax 
thread, upon finding which unmanageable, it attacked the wood work, 
and into one of the dove-tailings of this it thrust its bill, acting with 
it in the manner of a wedge. It was unsuccessful indeed in unhinging- 
this, but I have no doubt that half the force and skill which it exhi- 
bited, would have proved sufficient to hew out a nest-hole in a decayed 
tree.*‘ 
The eggs are six or seven in number, rarely eight, white, speckled 
with rust-colour at the larger end ; their weight is seventeen grains. 
It has been said that this bird will sometimes lay as many as twenty 
eggs in the same nest ; but this is certainly an error, for in the great 
abundance of nests we have seen, with eggs and young, never more 
than eight were found. The female is tenacious of her nest, and will 
often suffer herself to be taken rather than quit it, and will frequently 
return again, after being taken out. Upon such an occasion it menaces 
the invader in a singular manner, erecting all its feathers, and hissing 
like a snake, or uttering a noise like the spitting of a cat, and if handled, 
bites severely. It has no song, but makes a shrill chirping noise, 
quickly repeated. It is found in every part of Europe. 
Architecture of Birds. Chap, on Carpenter Birds, p. 134. 
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