nts. 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