TITMICE. 
pearly setting is his crown of dazzling azure blue. His back is 
of a bright olive-green, the under part of the throat is black, 
the wings are sky-blue tipped with white, and his tail is as 
brilliant as his crown. The female, although equally active 
and amusing, is not near so handsome as her husband. She 
is rather smaller in stature, and the blue, of her plumage is 
generally toned down with grey. 
“ The bill of this bird,” says a naturalist, “ 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 one out 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, 
decayed and soft, had evi- 
dently been cut away, so as 
to give an upward winding 
entrance to the nest, and I 
have remarked a ' similar 
winding either upward or on 
one side in the nests of this 
bird in old stone walls, mortar 
or small stones having pro- 
bably 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 woodwork, 
and into one of the dovetailings 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 it exhibited would have proved sufficient to hew 
! out a nest-hole in a decayed tree.” 
As regards the strength of the tomtit’s beak, or rather of the 
muscular power of his thick bull-neck, a friend of mine expe- 
rienced an unpleasant practical instance. Besides a tomtit 
he kept an aquarium, a handsome glass-panelled affair, 
plentifully stocked with fish, lizards, beetles, &c. The 
contents of the glass cistern were evidently a subject of 
great perplexity to the inquisitive little tit (who, by-the-bye, 
186 
THE BLUE TIT. 
