I must own my strong liking for these active, saucy little birds. For
eighteen years I have always had a basket hung just outside the
dining-room window containing their favourite food, _.e._, fat of any
kind, cooked or uncooked; and most amusing it is to watch their little
odd ways and tempers whilst frequenting the said basket. Four species
thus studied showed distinct characteristics. Directly I put out a fresh
supply of fat, the Cole Tit would spend all his time and energies in
carrying it away, piece by piece, to lay by in store for the future, in
crevices in the bark of trees, and this work he would carry on with
misplaced energy until the basket was emptied. The Greater Tit and Marsh
Tit came quietly for the supply of their own personal needs, and to feed
their young in nesting time, but the Blue Tit was by far the most
amusing. His attitudes were quite a study; he seemed rather to prefer
being upside down; clinging to the basket and hammering away at the hard
fat, head downwards, was a favourite pose; then, when any one else
desired a share, he would make a stand with open beak and outspread
wings and enact "king of the castle" in the most impertinent manner,
considering his tiny dimensions. A guerilla warfare seems always going
on amongst these Blue Tits. If one was in the basket and remaining
perfectly still, I knew two or three others were meditating a sudden
combined assault, but it seemed as if the steady gaze of the titmouse
in possession kept them at bay for a time. At length a twittering
scrimmage ensued, and the combatants disappeared. I once coaxed a Blue
Tit to live in the dining-room for a few days, and he made himself very
happy, constantly flitting about in search of insects, running up and
down the curtains like a veritable mouse, alighting on any joint of cold
meat which happened to be on the sideboard, and making an excellent
dinner in Bohemian fashion. Of course his fearless curiosity led him
into difficulties. He would sit on the edge of a jug and peer down to
see what it might contain, and his plumage was not improved by the baths
of milk or cocoa which he met with in the pursuit of knowledge of this
kind. Some years ago an empty cocoa-husk with a hole at one end,
furnished with nesting materials, was hung up just above the basket of
fat. A large tit began to build in it, but unhappily for him a Blue Tit
had also been house-hunting, and determined to settle in it. I saw the
matter decided by a pitched battle between the two; they fought
desperately, rolling over and over on the lawn, pecking, chirping,
beating each other with their wings, like little feathered furies as
they were.
[Illustration: Titmice.]
At last it was ended, and Blue Tit was victor. It was pretty to see the
tiny pair building their nest, with little happy twitterings and
confabulations over each piece of moss or dried leaf, and so fearless
were they that a large blind was often let down close to and over the
husk without disturbing the inmates. When the hen bird was sitting, the
cock would bring a green caterpillar for her every four or five minutes,
and sometimes take her place on the nest. I often took the husk down
from its nail to show the brave little bird sitting on her eggs. If
touched she would hiss and set up her feathers, but did not leave her
nest. When the young birds were hatched, the parents were incessantly at
work from early morning till late at night bringing small caterpillars
about every two minutes to supply the wants of the tiny brood. One can
judge of the usefulness of these birds in ridding our gardens of insect
pests by the amount consumed by this one pair. By a moderate
calculation, and judging by what I saw one afternoon, I believe they
must have brought 3,570 in the course of one week. At last the day came
when five little blue heads peeped out of the entrance to the husk. One
after another the little ones flew into branches near by; the last one I
held in my hand for a while that I might draw its portrait. Fearing it
might be hungry if I kept it too long, I placed it in a cage on the
lawn, where the old birds found it and fed it for me through the bars. I
then brought it in again, and having finished its likeness, had the
pleasure of restoring it to its parents. The Blue and Cole Tit often
choose the inside of a disused pump as their nesting-place. A Cole Tit
built in an old pump in our grounds for many years, the curved spout
being its mode of ingress and egress. I could open a small door and look
at the pretty little hen on her nest, and then at her numerous family,
and watch their growth till old enough to fly. Certainly young birds
show a grand lesson of obedience, for creeping out into the world
through a dark, curved pipe, must have seemed a rather perilous mode of
exit. Another less fortunate Cole Tit built in a post-box placed by a
garden gate, and seemed in no way disconcerted when letters came in
suddenly around and upon her. She usually laid eighteen eggs in a deep,
soft nest of moss and hair. As boys were apt to take this nest year
after year, a lock was placed to the box to protect the little bird; but
the genus boy has no pity, and through the slit for the letters, some
cruel urchin, vexed at not being able to take the nest, put in a stick
and killed the poor little mother and broke the eggs. For several years
a Blue Tit chose to build her nest in the lower part of a stone vase in
the garden. There was a hole for drainage in the bottom, and through
this hole the little bird found a circular space just suited for her
nest. That particular vase could not be filled with plants till long
after all the rest were gay with flowers. We were obliged to wait till
the domestic affairs of the Tit family were ended, else their fate would
have been sad indeed. There is no doubt that these birds do contrive to
secure their share of peas and other things in the kitchen garden, and
are by no means favourites with the gardeners, but I still maintain that
the good they do in destroying insects counterbalances their evil doings
in other respects. However, they sometimes commit other misdemeanours.
My head gardener came to me one day looking very serious, and began by
asking what he was to do about "those Blue Tits." "Why, what have they
been doing?" I asked. "Two of them have been sitting at the entrance of
one of the hives, and they have picked off and killed every bee as it
came out, and now they have begun upon a second hive." "Well, you had
better hang up some potatoes stuck over with feathers, and that will
frighten them away." "I've done that, ma'am, and they sit on the
potatoes and look at me!" It was a trying case of utter contumacy, and
at last I was obliged, for the sake of saving my bees, to let one little
victim be shot and hung up as "an awful example" to the rest, and it
proved an effectual remedy. My basket of fat used to prove very
attractive all through the cold weather, when, I suppose, these tiny
birds need the caloric it supplies; they always left off coming as soon
as the days were warm and insects plentiful.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]