BLUE TITMOUSE. 
151 
IN’S ESS ORES. 
BEN TIR OS TREti. 
PARIDJE. 
BLUE TITMOUSE. 
BLUECAP, TOMTIT, BILLY-BITER. 
Parus CLERULEUS. 
PLATE XXXIX. FIG. II. 
Our well-known friend the Bluecap is the most nume¬ 
rous of his kind, and notwithstanding the absurd and 
cruel clamour that has been raised against him, and 
although he has long been outlawed, and a price set 
upon his guiltless head, he is of a race still sufficiently 
numerous to rid us of countless insects, and to heap 
benefits upon us in return for all the persecution that 
he has met with. He is a brave little fellow ; and when 
the severity of winter has driven him, together with 
his companion the great titmouse, to seek for shelter 
under our walls and evergreens and he is pinched with 
hunger, he will boldly enter any trap that may be set to 
catch him. It is thus in our gardens that he may be 
seen, closely prying into every corner, and diligently de¬ 
stroying thousands of insects in their winter quarters ; and 
though we may follow him in his search, and see the 
buds of promise from our trees strewed behind him, he 
has been destroying them to get at the lurking enemy 
within, which, had it been permitted to live till the fol¬ 
lowing spring, would have wrought us tenfold evil. 
Nothing that other birds will eat seems to come amiss 
to him; he is very fond of a bit of carrion; and in 
