4*22 
BLUE TIT. 
their mode of securing food ; they rise deliberately 
into the air for the space of 30 or 40 feet, and then 
plunge headlong into the water, but with what kind 
of success I could never ascertain. Later in the 
year, parties driven by storms make their appearance 
with us, sadly overcome by hunger and fatigue, and 
will in this pressing condition come close up to 
houses by the water side, to seize on offal. In 1831 
a party entered Plymouth Harbour on October 6th, 
the precursors of a coming storm. By the middle 
of the month they had all quitted us. 
Blue Tit .—During spring and summer this little 
bird has an abundance of food supplied to it in the 
insects then so generally abundant, and in parti¬ 
cular in those small beetles, and other insect races 
so profusely accumulated on apple trees. It is re- 
remarkably serviceable to us, in consuming the 
“ American/’ or “ white blight,” in our orchards 
and gardens, and in ridding fruit trees generally 
from infesting insects. Towards winter, the Blue 
Tit seems to have more scanty fare, and is very 
industrious in searching for the eggs, and aureliae of 
insects in the crevices of all kinds of trees, and 
even vines, and current bushes, and I have also 
noticed this bird clinging to walls, and extracting 
the same food from the minute crannies. Being 
thus worse supplied than in summer, it becomes 
in some degree carnivorous, for it will haunt in 
small parties the neighbourhood of chandlers’ shops 
in the country villages, and feed on the tallow in 
some cask or vessel outside the buildings. I have 
several times amused myself in winter by suspend¬ 
ing bones at the end of a string hung up in my 
garden, for the purpose of observing the interesting 
actions of the Blue Tit, which would presently 
cling to the bones and peck the bits of meat in 
apparent enjoyment, and by its notes give notice 
to its comrades, and thus every atom of eatable 
