880 GOLDCB ],si .
and built a nesl over the Bpot when- the fatal battle was fought.
Colonel Montagu also mentions one which would feed her young in
a room even when the nest was taken into the hand. He found
thai she fed her brood once in every minute and a half or two
minutes, averaging thirty-six times in the hour, and this for full
sixteen hours in a day. The young ones, eight in number, would
thus receive, if equally fed, seventy-two feeds each day, the whole
amounting to five hundred and seventy-six. The male would not
venture into the room.
They appear to bear confinement pretty well. In severe seasons
many perish, and several are frequently at surh times found dead in
outhouses, the thatch of roofs, and holes in ivy-covered walls, where
thev had assembled together for mutual warmth under such shelter
from the extremity of the wintry blast, and have been known to take
up their abode in the nest of the Wren. In those times of scarcity
they will even approach houses in search of food, and enter greenhouses
and hothouses. Even in mild seasons some are found in a
Lifeless state, hut only single birds. They usually go in companies of
twentv or thirty. It is said that they may be shaken down from a
branch by striking a blow against the trunk of the tree.
I n their longer passages from wood to wood, their flight, which is
weak, is rather rapid, irregular, and undulating, but in their shorter
flittiugs more straight. They sometimes exhibit an odd bowing movement
of the body, especially in the spring when two are about to
fight. They often run up trees with the nimbleness and agility of the
('reeper.
Their food consists principally of small winged and other insects and
their larval, and also of small seeds. In pursuit of the former they
carefully search branch after branch, their elegant crests, so to call
them, shewing to advantage every now and then; they also seize their
prey on the wing, and hover sometimes over the branches before
darting on it. and also creep nimbly in a mouse-like manner, up the
trunks of trees, seldom in a straight line, but usually in a sloping
direction, the capture of an insect being often denoted by a shuffle of
the wings: one has also been observed creeping up a wall in like
manner, searching for insects. 'The activity of this little bird is very
surprising:—It will alight on the branch of a tall tree in the copse,
and after a momentary survey, will dart on its prey reposing on the
back of the stein, suspend itself for a moment by a rapid motion of
its wings, then return to a branch, again glance at the stem, and nit
to i t ; in this manner it gradually mounts to the top of the tree, and,
should its prey prove to be plentiful, will ascend and descend several
(.Ol.DCKEsT. 831
times in succession, occasionally darting into the air at some unwary
gnat sporting in the beams of the winter sun.*
Their song, as may be supposed, is a very small one; and Pennant
mentions his having heard the bird utter it for a considerable time
while hovering over a bush. It is very soft, rather sweet, and
pleasing, and is heard even in the beginning or middle of the early
month of February, and sometimes so soon as the end of January: it
is mostly given forth from a branch, or in a hedge, or while the bird
is flying from tree to tree, as well as when hovering in the manner
spoken of. The ordinary note is weak and feeble, but rather shrill;
and in the quiet stillness of the depth of the wood it canuot fail to
draw the attention, especially when the whole of the little party are
incessantly uttering it: it is a mere ' t z i t , tzit,' and ' s e e ' or ' s r e e .'
These birds begin to pair even by the end of February, and Air.
Selby has known the young birds fully fledged so early as the third
week in April, the nest being built in .March. The nest is placed
underneath and generally near the end of the branch of a fir, or
occasionally on an oak, cypress, holly, yew, or other tree, as also not
very unfrequcntly in a laurustinus or other bush, and, though very
rarely, in a hedge, supported by some of the smaller oifshoots, and
further attached to these by the moss and lichens of which it is
composed being interwoven with them, mixed sometimes with willow
down, cocoons, spiders' webs, wool, grasses, and a few hairs. It
measures about three inches and a half in diameter inside, and is
deep and of a spherical shape, the orifice being almost always in the
upper part; some however are not perfectly round. It closely assimilates
in colour to the branch beneath which it is fixed. In a fir it is mostly
composed of moss, and, iu a thorn tree, of lichens. It is sometimes
placed near the top of the tree, and in some instances only two or
three feet from the ground: a very high gale has been known to dislodge
the eggs—'When the wind blows the cradle will rock.' These
birds have been known to steal the materials from the nests of
Chaffinches to make their own; one was noticed to do so most slily,
watching its opportunity, and approaching from the opposite direction;
but on the Chaffinch detecting and chasing it, it did not repeat
the theft. The nest is frequently lined with feathers, and is
altogether a singularly elegant piece of architecture. The feathers
are so placed as to project inward; two nests have been found on
one branch. Mr. Hcwitson says ' I t is sometimes placed upon the
upper surface of the branch; and I have also seen it, but rarely,
placed agaiust the trunk of the tree upon the base of a diverging
branch, a.ud UL an elevation of from twelve to twenty feet above the