A small bird, with a grayish-white head, black wings, and a dull brown
coat, a soft puffy little creature, may be found at all seasons hopping
merrily about in the hedge-rows and orchards of England and France.
It is known as the long-tailed titmouse, and is one of the most
remarkable members of the great titmouse family, which numbers more than
eighty-seven varieties.
Its nest is a wonderful specimen of bird-architecture. The little birds
work industriously, and at the end of fifteen days the beautiful home is
finished and ready to receive the small speckled eggs. The nest is
fastened to twigs covered with thick foliage, and a location near a
small water-course is usually selected. It is shaped like a large egg.
The little round door is at one side near the top, and some nests have
been found with a similar opening on the other side, lower down. As the
birds can not speak and explain this freak in the construction of their
house, the reason has never been found out. Some naturalists think it is
for better ventilation.
To weave its nest the bird collects bits of wood, soft moss, and the
strong silken winding of certain cocoons, which it twists together in
thick impenetrable walls, within which its little ones may lie secure
from rain and storm and cold. The exterior of the nest is artistically
covered with beautiful lichens and bits of soft bark, which make it in
color and outward texture so much like the branches to which it is
secured that a very sharp eye is needed to distinguish it.
When the little house is complete, it is furnished with a soft thick bed
of downy feathers, and the mother begins to brood over seven or eight
little rose-white eggs delicately specked with red.
These long-tailed titmice are the most faithful of all bird-parents.
They keep their children near them until they are a year old, and as two
broods are born during the warm weather, with seven or eight in each
brood, a whole titmouse family--papa, mamma, and as many as sixteen
little ones--may often be seen hopping about together and scouring the
hedges in search of food.
They are ravenous little creatures, and always hunting from morning till
night, and as they are very sociable, they go in large flocks,
twittering and chirping gleefully as they spy a swarm of fat flies, or
discover among old stone heaps or in the bark of trees the hiding-places
where tiny worms are lying asleep in a chrysalis shroud. They will also
eat beech-nuts, acorns, hemp, and other oily seeds.
English boys call these birds tomtits, and consider them the most
impertinent of all the feathered inhabitants of the country; for small
and graceful as they are, there are few birds which possess such a
violent temper or such cruel instincts. They will fight furiously with
each other for the possession of a plump insect or some other dainty
morsel, and--sad to relate--they show no mercy toward a poor wounded or
sick bird. No matter whether it is one of their own kind or of some
other species, the titmice set upon it and kill it with sharp blows from
their strong little beaks. When it is dead, they pick open its skull and
eat its brains.
In France titmice are often captured in snares, but unless the specimen
is very young, it will make a savage attack on the hands of the hunter
who takes it from the net. It is not difficult to tame them. They make
very wise and amusing pets, and if allowed to fly about will quickly
clear a room of flies and mosquitoes. But they should never be put in a
cage with other birds, for they will harass and worry them to death.
Titmice are very useful inhabitants of gardens and orchards, as they
wage continual war on all kinds of saw-flies and other small insects,
which do much injury to fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, and a wise
gardener will allow the saucy tomtit full liberty to hop and jump about
in search of a breakfast for himself and his numerous family.
In the United States ten varieties of titmice have been found, and there
are no doubt more. The most familiar among them is the chickadee, which
may be heard any sunny day during our long northern winter trilling its
merry chickadee-dee-dee in the fields and woods. It is one of the few
birds that remain with us during the entire year, and is always the same
lively, blithe little creature.