94 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
and barns, where they find spiders and flies that have laid 
themselves up during the cold season. But the grand support 
of the soft-billed birds in winter is that infinite profusion of 
aurelia of the order /efidoptera, which is fastened to the twigs 
of trees and their trunks; to the pales and walls of gardens 
and buildings; and is found in every cranny and cleft of rock 
or rubbish, and even in the ground itself. 
Every species of titmouse winters with us; they have what 
I call a kind of intermediate bill between the hard and the 
soft. One species alone spends its whole time in the woods 
and fields, never retreating for succor in the severest seasons 
to houses and neighborhoods; and that is the delicate long- 
tailed titmouse, which is almost as minute as the golden-crowned 
wren; but the blue titmouse or nun, the colemouse, the great 
black-headed titmouse, and the marsh titmouse, all resort at 
times to buildings, and in hard weather particularly. The 
great titmouse, driven by stress of weather, much frequents 
houses ; and, in deep snows, I have seen this bird, while it 
hung with its back downwards (to my no small delight and 
admiration), draw straws lengthwise from out the eaves of 
thatched houses, in order to pull out the flies that were con- 
cealed between them, and that in such numbers that they quite 
defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appearance. 
The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, 
and a general devourer. Besides insects, it is very fond of 
flesh: it is a vast admirer of suet, and haunts butchers’ shops. 
When a boy, I have known twenty in a morning caught with 
snap mouse-traps, baited with tallow or suet. It will also pick 
holes in apples left on the ground, and be well entertained with 
the seeds on the head of a sunflower. The blue, marsh, and 
great titmice will, in very severe weather, sei? away barley 
and oat-straws from the sides of ricks. 
How the wheatear and whinchat support themselves in 
winter cannot be so easily ascertained, since they spend their 
