THE TITS. 
93 
village where the Blue Tit is a plague to the bees on their first leaving the hives 
in early spring, destroying them without mercy. In consequence, it is shot down 
by the cottagers, and if it has not at present, will ere long acquire a bad name 
with countrymen. Professor Newton suggests that this is an individual peculiarity 
of the species, but in the village above named it seems to recur annually, in spite 
of the destruction of many of the marauders. 
Mr. Harvie Brown relates in the Zoologist (July, 1867) that he had seen an 
albino Greater Tit in the woods, accompanied by many more of the same species, 
and much mobbed by them. The same magazine (June, 1866) records an instance of 
a Long-tailed Tit’s nest having been found containing thirteen eggs. Nine of these 
belonged to the Tit, and four, which had been slightly sat upon, to a golden-crested 
wren. The Tits had probably forsaken the nest from some cause, and it had then 
been adopted by the wrens, which did not take the trouble to turn out the eggs of 
the original owners. In connection with the Greater Tit’s murderous habits, the 
following curious story may be added:—“ Early in the morning of the 13th of 
November, 1870, I noticed a Greater Titmouse (P. major ) fly down from the house¬ 
top with a living bat in his beak, and to our astonishment he set to work pecking 
at it, evidently for the purpose of killing it, which eventually he did, the bat making 
only a weak resistance by gently flapping its wings. The bird then flew away with 
its prey to a rose-tree some ten yards off. Revisiting the spot in two hours’ time, 
we found that its little beak had penetrated the bat’s skull, and cleared its brains 
out” (Rev. E. C. Moor, Zoologist, p. 2439, January, 1871). With regard to the 
Crested Tit not being a native of England, Mr. Harting gives a few instances of 
its capture, but they were evidently stray birds. 
