CHAPTER XXVII

[Contents]CHAPTER XXVIITHE TITMOUSE“At last we come to some caterpillar-destroyers that are never anything but helpful. First of all there is the titmouse, also known as the tomtit.Tufted TitmouseTufted Titmouse“It is a graceful little bird, lively and quick-tempered, always on the go, flying continually from tree to tree, carefully inspecting the branches, hanging from the tip ends of the slenderest of them in all sorts of positions, often head downward, swaying this way and that with its flexible support and never letting go its hold, while it examines all buds that it suspects of containing worms, and tears these buds to pieces in order to get at the grubs and insect eggs they contain. It is calculated that a titmouse consumes three hundred thousand insect eggs a year, and certainly few birds have larger families to provide for! Twenty or more little ones all huddled together in the same nest are not too great a strain on the parent’s energy and industry. The mother bird has to examine buds and the fissures in[205]the bark of trees in order to find grubs, spiders, caterpillars, worms of every kind, and feed a score of beaks always open and demanding food in the bottom of the nest. She comes with a caterpillar, the brood is all excitement, twenty mouths fly open, but only one receives the morsel, leaving nineteen still expectant. Then away flies the titmouse again without an instant’s pause, to seek more food. Thus back and forth she flies, without rest and without weariness; and by the time the twentieth mouth is fed the first one is again open, and has been open a good while, clamoring for more.“I will leave you to guess how many worms are eaten in a day by such a household; and I will also let you reach your own conclusions regarding the value of these birds as caterpillar-hunters among our fruit-trees. Complaint is made, I know, that they tear open the buds and destroy them; but the harm they do is only apparent. When they pluck a bud it is to get out some tiny larva lodged between two scales, and not to harm the young leaves or flowers that are forming. It is better that this wormy bud should perish; it would not have produced anything, and the enemy lodged within it would have produced countless others to ravage the tree the next year.”“Then the titmouse does not feed on vegetable matter?” asked Louis.“No, except perhaps occasionally on a few seeds, such as those of hemp. The bird requires animal food; small insects of all kinds, their eggs and larvæ,[206]suit it best. Its appetite for prey is so keen that it has the courage to attack little, disabled birds or those caught in snares, pecking at their skulls and greedily devouring their brains. It is true that the titmouse is remarkably courageous despite its smallness of size; it is extremely quick and quarrelsome, and a regular little ogre in time of famine. Its beak is conical, strong, short, and pointed; and its claws end in hooked nails designed for seizing their victims, like the talons of birds of prey. With these the bird grasps its food and conveys it to its beak, like the parrot.“At the end of the brooding season the tomtits all assemble in companies of one or two families each and travel together by short stages. These companies appear to have a leader, probably the father or the mother, and every now and then they are called together from one tree to another, after which they separate again, only to reunite once more at the leader’s summons. Their flight is short and irregular: they scatter through the woods, gardens, fields, and orchards, inspecting trees and bushes on the way and picking up larvæ and insects.“The titmouse family is made up of many species. We have eight in our country, but I shall speak only of the principal ones.“The coal-tit is the largest, being of about the redbreast’s size. It is bluish gray on the back and yellow underneath. The head is of a beautiful glossy black, and a wide stripe of the same color runs down the middle of the chest and stomach and[207]around the eyes, which are also set off by a large white spot. The large wing-feathers are edged with ashy blue.“This bird is very common in copses and gardens, and is the one we hear in autumn repeating, as it examines the bark of fruit-trees, its cry oftitipoo, titipoo, titipoo. At times this cry has a harsh sound like the rasping of a file, and this has given to the bird, in some neighborhoods, the name of locksmith. It nests in a hollow tree trunk, lining its quarters with some soft, silky material, chiefly fine feathers. Its laying consists of about fifteen white eggs spotted with light red, especially toward the large end. Its family demands not fewer than three hundred caterpillars a day, or their equivalent in vermin of some sort. What the gardener, the nurseryman, and the forester owe this valiant caterpillar-destroyer by the end of the year cannot be calculated. Yet I have seen these very persons angrily thrust an arm into the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree to pull out the coal-tit’s nest and throw the whole thing to the winds,—eggs, feathers, and little birds only a day old. And they thought they were doing something worthy of praise, for according to them the coal-tit eats buds. But I declare that the coal-tit does not eat buds; it eats the little larvæ lodged in the bud’s scales, and its instinct never allows it to molest healthy buds, which contain nothing of any value to the bird. Leave it in peace, then, to pluck the wormy buds, which it can very easily tell from the sound ones.[208]“The coal-tit sometimes eats hemp-seed or hazelnuts, picking out the edible part with a dexterity of beak and claw—I had almost said hand—possessed by no other bird. The sparrow, chaffinch, goldfinch, and others crush the hemp-seed between their mandibles; the coal-tit grasps it in its claw, carries it to the beak, and makes in the shell a small round opening through which it picks out the meat. The hazelnut is managed with the same skill.“The blue tit is a beautiful little bird that keeps company with the coal-tit and frequents orchards. It is olive-colored above and yellow underneath, with the top of the head an azure blue, the forehead white, and the cheeks white framed in black. A little collar of black also encircles the back and sides of the neck. The large feathers of the tail and wings are edged with blue. This titmouse, so elegant in plumage, so graceful in its bearing, always running about over the bark of tree trunks and around the branches, always hanging from the flexible boughs, and always pecking and searching, is no whit inferior to the coal-tit in its talent for catching caterpillars. It has been seen in a few hours to clear a rosebush of two thousand plant-lice. Caterpillars and the eggs of insects, especially of those that attack fruit, are its chief food. It is very fond of little birds’ brains, but if need be can get along with hemp-seed. Like the coal-tit, it nests in a hollow tree trunk, its nest being nothing but a heap of small feathers. No other species raises a larger family. The eggs are more than twenty in number,[209]white with reddish spots, especially at the large end.“Two other tomtits, of less value as caterpillar-destroyers, build their nests with much art. They are the long-tailed titmouse and the penduline.“The first of these is different from all other tomtits in the length of its tail, which forms more than half the length of the body. This bird lives in the woods during the summer and visits our gardens and orchards only in the winter. It is a small bird, scarcely bigger than a wren, reddish gray on the back and white underneath, with a tinge of red on the stomach and with white nape and cheeks.“The nest is occasionally built in the fork of some branch in bush or hedge, a few feet from the ground, but oftener it is attached to the trunk of a willow or a poplar. Its shape is that of an elongated oval or, rather, an enormous cocoon enlarged at the base, with an entrance on the side about an inch from the top. The outside is made of lichens such as grow on old tree trunks, having thus the appearance of bark and deceiving the casual observer. Filaments of wool bind the whole compactly together. The dome or roof, ingeniously contrived for shedding rain, is a thick felt of moss and cobweb. The inside is like an oven with a bowl-shaped bottom and high arched top. Its shape and the thick layer of soft feathers lining it make the nest warm and cozy. From sixteen to twenty young birds are packed into the narrow space, which does not exceed the hollow of the hand. By what miracle of orderly arrangement do these twenty little creatures and their[210]mother manage to find room for themselves in this tiny abode, and how can tails of such length develop there? It would be impossible to find anywhere a more economical use of space.”“How I should like to see the twenty little tomtits snuggling together in that tiny nest!” Emile exclaimed.“I have had that good fortune,” said his uncle, “and even now I am strangely moved whenever I think of those twenty little heads stretching up from the bottom of the nest, trembling and with open beaks as if their mother had come. I looked for a moment through the opening of the nest at the tiny creatures, and then withdrew. The parents were already at hand, ruffling their feathers with anxiety. Fear nothing, little birds, so watchful of your family; Uncle Paul is not one to commit the crime of touching your nest.”“Nor Emile, either,” chimed in the boy.“Nor yet Jules or Louis,” added the last-named.“I hope not, indeed; for otherwise Uncle Paul would tell you no more stories.“The penduline’s nest is still more remarkable. This titmouse is found hardly anywhere except along the banks of the lower Rhone. It hangs its nest very high, from the tip of some swaying tree branch by the waterside, so that its young are gently rocked by the breeze from the water. The nest is a sort of oval purse about as large as a quart bottle and pierced on the side near the top by a narrow opening that would hardly admit a man’s thumb. To enter[211]its nest the tomtit, small though it is, must stretch the elastic wall, which yields a little and then contracts again. This purse-shaped abode is made of the cotton-like fluff that flies off in May from the ripe catkins of poplars and willows. The bird gathers this material and then weaves it together with a warp of wool and hemp. The resulting fabric resembles the felt of a coarse hat.Long-tailed TitmiceLong-tailed Titmice“I am at a loss to understand how the bird manages to weave with its beak and claws a stuff superior to any that the unaided human fingers could produce; and yet it does this with no instruction, with no hesitation, and with no hints from the work of others. At its very first attempt the titmouse puts to shame the studied art of our weavers and fullers. The top or roof of the nest includes in its structure the tip of the branch from which it hangs and also the little twigs growing out of that tip end which serve as a framework for the vault; but the[212]foliage emerges from the sides of the nest and furnishes shade from the sun’s heat. Finally, to secure the nest more firmly, cordage of wool and hemp binds the upper part to the branch and below is worked into the woof of the felt. The inside is lined with poplar fluff of the best quality. It takes a pair of pendulines three weeks of the hardest work to make this marvel.”“Doesn’t the rain ever get through the covering of the nest?” Emile inquired.“No; the felt is so thick and so closely woven that even with the hardest rain not a drop of water can leak into the cotton-lined interior.”“How comfortable the little birds must be in their snug nest! The wind rocks them gently over the water, and from their little window they can see the river flowing below. What is this clever penduline like?”“It is ash-colored, with brown wings and tail, and a black stripe across the forehead. Its dress is simple, you see, as is always the case with those that possess real merit. The blue tit has rich plumage, but when it comes to nest-building it can only pile feathers on top of one another at the bottom of a tree-hollow. The penduline is of modest appearance, but it builds the most wonderful nest it is possible to find. To each his portion, talent or fine clothes.”“All of us here choose talent,” declared Jules.“Never, my children,” urged Uncle Paul, “be untrue to that sentiment.”[213]“We should have to forget your teachings,” the other replied, “before we could do that.”“And what are the eggs like?” asked Emile.“Emile is bound to have all I can tell him about the penduline. Does this builder of felt nests interest you, then, so very much?”“Yes, it does,” Emile assured him.“Well, the eggs are quite white and rather long. There are three or four of them to a nest.”“No more than that, when the other tomtits have twenty?”“No more; but to make up for it there are two layings a year.”[214]

[Contents]CHAPTER XXVIITHE TITMOUSE“At last we come to some caterpillar-destroyers that are never anything but helpful. First of all there is the titmouse, also known as the tomtit.Tufted TitmouseTufted Titmouse“It is a graceful little bird, lively and quick-tempered, always on the go, flying continually from tree to tree, carefully inspecting the branches, hanging from the tip ends of the slenderest of them in all sorts of positions, often head downward, swaying this way and that with its flexible support and never letting go its hold, while it examines all buds that it suspects of containing worms, and tears these buds to pieces in order to get at the grubs and insect eggs they contain. It is calculated that a titmouse consumes three hundred thousand insect eggs a year, and certainly few birds have larger families to provide for! Twenty or more little ones all huddled together in the same nest are not too great a strain on the parent’s energy and industry. The mother bird has to examine buds and the fissures in[205]the bark of trees in order to find grubs, spiders, caterpillars, worms of every kind, and feed a score of beaks always open and demanding food in the bottom of the nest. She comes with a caterpillar, the brood is all excitement, twenty mouths fly open, but only one receives the morsel, leaving nineteen still expectant. Then away flies the titmouse again without an instant’s pause, to seek more food. Thus back and forth she flies, without rest and without weariness; and by the time the twentieth mouth is fed the first one is again open, and has been open a good while, clamoring for more.“I will leave you to guess how many worms are eaten in a day by such a household; and I will also let you reach your own conclusions regarding the value of these birds as caterpillar-hunters among our fruit-trees. Complaint is made, I know, that they tear open the buds and destroy them; but the harm they do is only apparent. When they pluck a bud it is to get out some tiny larva lodged between two scales, and not to harm the young leaves or flowers that are forming. It is better that this wormy bud should perish; it would not have produced anything, and the enemy lodged within it would have produced countless others to ravage the tree the next year.”“Then the titmouse does not feed on vegetable matter?” asked Louis.“No, except perhaps occasionally on a few seeds, such as those of hemp. The bird requires animal food; small insects of all kinds, their eggs and larvæ,[206]suit it best. Its appetite for prey is so keen that it has the courage to attack little, disabled birds or those caught in snares, pecking at their skulls and greedily devouring their brains. It is true that the titmouse is remarkably courageous despite its smallness of size; it is extremely quick and quarrelsome, and a regular little ogre in time of famine. Its beak is conical, strong, short, and pointed; and its claws end in hooked nails designed for seizing their victims, like the talons of birds of prey. With these the bird grasps its food and conveys it to its beak, like the parrot.“At the end of the brooding season the tomtits all assemble in companies of one or two families each and travel together by short stages. These companies appear to have a leader, probably the father or the mother, and every now and then they are called together from one tree to another, after which they separate again, only to reunite once more at the leader’s summons. Their flight is short and irregular: they scatter through the woods, gardens, fields, and orchards, inspecting trees and bushes on the way and picking up larvæ and insects.“The titmouse family is made up of many species. We have eight in our country, but I shall speak only of the principal ones.“The coal-tit is the largest, being of about the redbreast’s size. It is bluish gray on the back and yellow underneath. The head is of a beautiful glossy black, and a wide stripe of the same color runs down the middle of the chest and stomach and[207]around the eyes, which are also set off by a large white spot. The large wing-feathers are edged with ashy blue.“This bird is very common in copses and gardens, and is the one we hear in autumn repeating, as it examines the bark of fruit-trees, its cry oftitipoo, titipoo, titipoo. At times this cry has a harsh sound like the rasping of a file, and this has given to the bird, in some neighborhoods, the name of locksmith. It nests in a hollow tree trunk, lining its quarters with some soft, silky material, chiefly fine feathers. Its laying consists of about fifteen white eggs spotted with light red, especially toward the large end. Its family demands not fewer than three hundred caterpillars a day, or their equivalent in vermin of some sort. What the gardener, the nurseryman, and the forester owe this valiant caterpillar-destroyer by the end of the year cannot be calculated. Yet I have seen these very persons angrily thrust an arm into the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree to pull out the coal-tit’s nest and throw the whole thing to the winds,—eggs, feathers, and little birds only a day old. And they thought they were doing something worthy of praise, for according to them the coal-tit eats buds. But I declare that the coal-tit does not eat buds; it eats the little larvæ lodged in the bud’s scales, and its instinct never allows it to molest healthy buds, which contain nothing of any value to the bird. Leave it in peace, then, to pluck the wormy buds, which it can very easily tell from the sound ones.[208]“The coal-tit sometimes eats hemp-seed or hazelnuts, picking out the edible part with a dexterity of beak and claw—I had almost said hand—possessed by no other bird. The sparrow, chaffinch, goldfinch, and others crush the hemp-seed between their mandibles; the coal-tit grasps it in its claw, carries it to the beak, and makes in the shell a small round opening through which it picks out the meat. The hazelnut is managed with the same skill.“The blue tit is a beautiful little bird that keeps company with the coal-tit and frequents orchards. It is olive-colored above and yellow underneath, with the top of the head an azure blue, the forehead white, and the cheeks white framed in black. A little collar of black also encircles the back and sides of the neck. The large feathers of the tail and wings are edged with blue. This titmouse, so elegant in plumage, so graceful in its bearing, always running about over the bark of tree trunks and around the branches, always hanging from the flexible boughs, and always pecking and searching, is no whit inferior to the coal-tit in its talent for catching caterpillars. It has been seen in a few hours to clear a rosebush of two thousand plant-lice. Caterpillars and the eggs of insects, especially of those that attack fruit, are its chief food. It is very fond of little birds’ brains, but if need be can get along with hemp-seed. Like the coal-tit, it nests in a hollow tree trunk, its nest being nothing but a heap of small feathers. No other species raises a larger family. The eggs are more than twenty in number,[209]white with reddish spots, especially at the large end.“Two other tomtits, of less value as caterpillar-destroyers, build their nests with much art. They are the long-tailed titmouse and the penduline.“The first of these is different from all other tomtits in the length of its tail, which forms more than half the length of the body. This bird lives in the woods during the summer and visits our gardens and orchards only in the winter. It is a small bird, scarcely bigger than a wren, reddish gray on the back and white underneath, with a tinge of red on the stomach and with white nape and cheeks.“The nest is occasionally built in the fork of some branch in bush or hedge, a few feet from the ground, but oftener it is attached to the trunk of a willow or a poplar. Its shape is that of an elongated oval or, rather, an enormous cocoon enlarged at the base, with an entrance on the side about an inch from the top. The outside is made of lichens such as grow on old tree trunks, having thus the appearance of bark and deceiving the casual observer. Filaments of wool bind the whole compactly together. The dome or roof, ingeniously contrived for shedding rain, is a thick felt of moss and cobweb. The inside is like an oven with a bowl-shaped bottom and high arched top. Its shape and the thick layer of soft feathers lining it make the nest warm and cozy. From sixteen to twenty young birds are packed into the narrow space, which does not exceed the hollow of the hand. By what miracle of orderly arrangement do these twenty little creatures and their[210]mother manage to find room for themselves in this tiny abode, and how can tails of such length develop there? It would be impossible to find anywhere a more economical use of space.”“How I should like to see the twenty little tomtits snuggling together in that tiny nest!” Emile exclaimed.“I have had that good fortune,” said his uncle, “and even now I am strangely moved whenever I think of those twenty little heads stretching up from the bottom of the nest, trembling and with open beaks as if their mother had come. I looked for a moment through the opening of the nest at the tiny creatures, and then withdrew. The parents were already at hand, ruffling their feathers with anxiety. Fear nothing, little birds, so watchful of your family; Uncle Paul is not one to commit the crime of touching your nest.”“Nor Emile, either,” chimed in the boy.“Nor yet Jules or Louis,” added the last-named.“I hope not, indeed; for otherwise Uncle Paul would tell you no more stories.“The penduline’s nest is still more remarkable. This titmouse is found hardly anywhere except along the banks of the lower Rhone. It hangs its nest very high, from the tip of some swaying tree branch by the waterside, so that its young are gently rocked by the breeze from the water. The nest is a sort of oval purse about as large as a quart bottle and pierced on the side near the top by a narrow opening that would hardly admit a man’s thumb. To enter[211]its nest the tomtit, small though it is, must stretch the elastic wall, which yields a little and then contracts again. This purse-shaped abode is made of the cotton-like fluff that flies off in May from the ripe catkins of poplars and willows. The bird gathers this material and then weaves it together with a warp of wool and hemp. The resulting fabric resembles the felt of a coarse hat.Long-tailed TitmiceLong-tailed Titmice“I am at a loss to understand how the bird manages to weave with its beak and claws a stuff superior to any that the unaided human fingers could produce; and yet it does this with no instruction, with no hesitation, and with no hints from the work of others. At its very first attempt the titmouse puts to shame the studied art of our weavers and fullers. The top or roof of the nest includes in its structure the tip of the branch from which it hangs and also the little twigs growing out of that tip end which serve as a framework for the vault; but the[212]foliage emerges from the sides of the nest and furnishes shade from the sun’s heat. Finally, to secure the nest more firmly, cordage of wool and hemp binds the upper part to the branch and below is worked into the woof of the felt. The inside is lined with poplar fluff of the best quality. It takes a pair of pendulines three weeks of the hardest work to make this marvel.”“Doesn’t the rain ever get through the covering of the nest?” Emile inquired.“No; the felt is so thick and so closely woven that even with the hardest rain not a drop of water can leak into the cotton-lined interior.”“How comfortable the little birds must be in their snug nest! The wind rocks them gently over the water, and from their little window they can see the river flowing below. What is this clever penduline like?”“It is ash-colored, with brown wings and tail, and a black stripe across the forehead. Its dress is simple, you see, as is always the case with those that possess real merit. The blue tit has rich plumage, but when it comes to nest-building it can only pile feathers on top of one another at the bottom of a tree-hollow. The penduline is of modest appearance, but it builds the most wonderful nest it is possible to find. To each his portion, talent or fine clothes.”“All of us here choose talent,” declared Jules.“Never, my children,” urged Uncle Paul, “be untrue to that sentiment.”[213]“We should have to forget your teachings,” the other replied, “before we could do that.”“And what are the eggs like?” asked Emile.“Emile is bound to have all I can tell him about the penduline. Does this builder of felt nests interest you, then, so very much?”“Yes, it does,” Emile assured him.“Well, the eggs are quite white and rather long. There are three or four of them to a nest.”“No more than that, when the other tomtits have twenty?”“No more; but to make up for it there are two layings a year.”[214]

CHAPTER XXVIITHE TITMOUSE

“At last we come to some caterpillar-destroyers that are never anything but helpful. First of all there is the titmouse, also known as the tomtit.Tufted TitmouseTufted Titmouse“It is a graceful little bird, lively and quick-tempered, always on the go, flying continually from tree to tree, carefully inspecting the branches, hanging from the tip ends of the slenderest of them in all sorts of positions, often head downward, swaying this way and that with its flexible support and never letting go its hold, while it examines all buds that it suspects of containing worms, and tears these buds to pieces in order to get at the grubs and insect eggs they contain. It is calculated that a titmouse consumes three hundred thousand insect eggs a year, and certainly few birds have larger families to provide for! Twenty or more little ones all huddled together in the same nest are not too great a strain on the parent’s energy and industry. The mother bird has to examine buds and the fissures in[205]the bark of trees in order to find grubs, spiders, caterpillars, worms of every kind, and feed a score of beaks always open and demanding food in the bottom of the nest. She comes with a caterpillar, the brood is all excitement, twenty mouths fly open, but only one receives the morsel, leaving nineteen still expectant. Then away flies the titmouse again without an instant’s pause, to seek more food. Thus back and forth she flies, without rest and without weariness; and by the time the twentieth mouth is fed the first one is again open, and has been open a good while, clamoring for more.“I will leave you to guess how many worms are eaten in a day by such a household; and I will also let you reach your own conclusions regarding the value of these birds as caterpillar-hunters among our fruit-trees. Complaint is made, I know, that they tear open the buds and destroy them; but the harm they do is only apparent. When they pluck a bud it is to get out some tiny larva lodged between two scales, and not to harm the young leaves or flowers that are forming. It is better that this wormy bud should perish; it would not have produced anything, and the enemy lodged within it would have produced countless others to ravage the tree the next year.”“Then the titmouse does not feed on vegetable matter?” asked Louis.“No, except perhaps occasionally on a few seeds, such as those of hemp. The bird requires animal food; small insects of all kinds, their eggs and larvæ,[206]suit it best. Its appetite for prey is so keen that it has the courage to attack little, disabled birds or those caught in snares, pecking at their skulls and greedily devouring their brains. It is true that the titmouse is remarkably courageous despite its smallness of size; it is extremely quick and quarrelsome, and a regular little ogre in time of famine. Its beak is conical, strong, short, and pointed; and its claws end in hooked nails designed for seizing their victims, like the talons of birds of prey. With these the bird grasps its food and conveys it to its beak, like the parrot.“At the end of the brooding season the tomtits all assemble in companies of one or two families each and travel together by short stages. These companies appear to have a leader, probably the father or the mother, and every now and then they are called together from one tree to another, after which they separate again, only to reunite once more at the leader’s summons. Their flight is short and irregular: they scatter through the woods, gardens, fields, and orchards, inspecting trees and bushes on the way and picking up larvæ and insects.“The titmouse family is made up of many species. We have eight in our country, but I shall speak only of the principal ones.“The coal-tit is the largest, being of about the redbreast’s size. It is bluish gray on the back and yellow underneath. The head is of a beautiful glossy black, and a wide stripe of the same color runs down the middle of the chest and stomach and[207]around the eyes, which are also set off by a large white spot. The large wing-feathers are edged with ashy blue.“This bird is very common in copses and gardens, and is the one we hear in autumn repeating, as it examines the bark of fruit-trees, its cry oftitipoo, titipoo, titipoo. At times this cry has a harsh sound like the rasping of a file, and this has given to the bird, in some neighborhoods, the name of locksmith. It nests in a hollow tree trunk, lining its quarters with some soft, silky material, chiefly fine feathers. Its laying consists of about fifteen white eggs spotted with light red, especially toward the large end. Its family demands not fewer than three hundred caterpillars a day, or their equivalent in vermin of some sort. What the gardener, the nurseryman, and the forester owe this valiant caterpillar-destroyer by the end of the year cannot be calculated. Yet I have seen these very persons angrily thrust an arm into the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree to pull out the coal-tit’s nest and throw the whole thing to the winds,—eggs, feathers, and little birds only a day old. And they thought they were doing something worthy of praise, for according to them the coal-tit eats buds. But I declare that the coal-tit does not eat buds; it eats the little larvæ lodged in the bud’s scales, and its instinct never allows it to molest healthy buds, which contain nothing of any value to the bird. Leave it in peace, then, to pluck the wormy buds, which it can very easily tell from the sound ones.[208]“The coal-tit sometimes eats hemp-seed or hazelnuts, picking out the edible part with a dexterity of beak and claw—I had almost said hand—possessed by no other bird. The sparrow, chaffinch, goldfinch, and others crush the hemp-seed between their mandibles; the coal-tit grasps it in its claw, carries it to the beak, and makes in the shell a small round opening through which it picks out the meat. The hazelnut is managed with the same skill.“The blue tit is a beautiful little bird that keeps company with the coal-tit and frequents orchards. It is olive-colored above and yellow underneath, with the top of the head an azure blue, the forehead white, and the cheeks white framed in black. A little collar of black also encircles the back and sides of the neck. The large feathers of the tail and wings are edged with blue. This titmouse, so elegant in plumage, so graceful in its bearing, always running about over the bark of tree trunks and around the branches, always hanging from the flexible boughs, and always pecking and searching, is no whit inferior to the coal-tit in its talent for catching caterpillars. It has been seen in a few hours to clear a rosebush of two thousand plant-lice. Caterpillars and the eggs of insects, especially of those that attack fruit, are its chief food. It is very fond of little birds’ brains, but if need be can get along with hemp-seed. Like the coal-tit, it nests in a hollow tree trunk, its nest being nothing but a heap of small feathers. No other species raises a larger family. The eggs are more than twenty in number,[209]white with reddish spots, especially at the large end.“Two other tomtits, of less value as caterpillar-destroyers, build their nests with much art. They are the long-tailed titmouse and the penduline.“The first of these is different from all other tomtits in the length of its tail, which forms more than half the length of the body. This bird lives in the woods during the summer and visits our gardens and orchards only in the winter. It is a small bird, scarcely bigger than a wren, reddish gray on the back and white underneath, with a tinge of red on the stomach and with white nape and cheeks.“The nest is occasionally built in the fork of some branch in bush or hedge, a few feet from the ground, but oftener it is attached to the trunk of a willow or a poplar. Its shape is that of an elongated oval or, rather, an enormous cocoon enlarged at the base, with an entrance on the side about an inch from the top. The outside is made of lichens such as grow on old tree trunks, having thus the appearance of bark and deceiving the casual observer. Filaments of wool bind the whole compactly together. The dome or roof, ingeniously contrived for shedding rain, is a thick felt of moss and cobweb. The inside is like an oven with a bowl-shaped bottom and high arched top. Its shape and the thick layer of soft feathers lining it make the nest warm and cozy. From sixteen to twenty young birds are packed into the narrow space, which does not exceed the hollow of the hand. By what miracle of orderly arrangement do these twenty little creatures and their[210]mother manage to find room for themselves in this tiny abode, and how can tails of such length develop there? It would be impossible to find anywhere a more economical use of space.”“How I should like to see the twenty little tomtits snuggling together in that tiny nest!” Emile exclaimed.“I have had that good fortune,” said his uncle, “and even now I am strangely moved whenever I think of those twenty little heads stretching up from the bottom of the nest, trembling and with open beaks as if their mother had come. I looked for a moment through the opening of the nest at the tiny creatures, and then withdrew. The parents were already at hand, ruffling their feathers with anxiety. Fear nothing, little birds, so watchful of your family; Uncle Paul is not one to commit the crime of touching your nest.”“Nor Emile, either,” chimed in the boy.“Nor yet Jules or Louis,” added the last-named.“I hope not, indeed; for otherwise Uncle Paul would tell you no more stories.“The penduline’s nest is still more remarkable. This titmouse is found hardly anywhere except along the banks of the lower Rhone. It hangs its nest very high, from the tip of some swaying tree branch by the waterside, so that its young are gently rocked by the breeze from the water. The nest is a sort of oval purse about as large as a quart bottle and pierced on the side near the top by a narrow opening that would hardly admit a man’s thumb. To enter[211]its nest the tomtit, small though it is, must stretch the elastic wall, which yields a little and then contracts again. This purse-shaped abode is made of the cotton-like fluff that flies off in May from the ripe catkins of poplars and willows. The bird gathers this material and then weaves it together with a warp of wool and hemp. The resulting fabric resembles the felt of a coarse hat.Long-tailed TitmiceLong-tailed Titmice“I am at a loss to understand how the bird manages to weave with its beak and claws a stuff superior to any that the unaided human fingers could produce; and yet it does this with no instruction, with no hesitation, and with no hints from the work of others. At its very first attempt the titmouse puts to shame the studied art of our weavers and fullers. The top or roof of the nest includes in its structure the tip of the branch from which it hangs and also the little twigs growing out of that tip end which serve as a framework for the vault; but the[212]foliage emerges from the sides of the nest and furnishes shade from the sun’s heat. Finally, to secure the nest more firmly, cordage of wool and hemp binds the upper part to the branch and below is worked into the woof of the felt. The inside is lined with poplar fluff of the best quality. It takes a pair of pendulines three weeks of the hardest work to make this marvel.”“Doesn’t the rain ever get through the covering of the nest?” Emile inquired.“No; the felt is so thick and so closely woven that even with the hardest rain not a drop of water can leak into the cotton-lined interior.”“How comfortable the little birds must be in their snug nest! The wind rocks them gently over the water, and from their little window they can see the river flowing below. What is this clever penduline like?”“It is ash-colored, with brown wings and tail, and a black stripe across the forehead. Its dress is simple, you see, as is always the case with those that possess real merit. The blue tit has rich plumage, but when it comes to nest-building it can only pile feathers on top of one another at the bottom of a tree-hollow. The penduline is of modest appearance, but it builds the most wonderful nest it is possible to find. To each his portion, talent or fine clothes.”“All of us here choose talent,” declared Jules.“Never, my children,” urged Uncle Paul, “be untrue to that sentiment.”[213]“We should have to forget your teachings,” the other replied, “before we could do that.”“And what are the eggs like?” asked Emile.“Emile is bound to have all I can tell him about the penduline. Does this builder of felt nests interest you, then, so very much?”“Yes, it does,” Emile assured him.“Well, the eggs are quite white and rather long. There are three or four of them to a nest.”“No more than that, when the other tomtits have twenty?”“No more; but to make up for it there are two layings a year.”[214]

“At last we come to some caterpillar-destroyers that are never anything but helpful. First of all there is the titmouse, also known as the tomtit.

Tufted TitmouseTufted Titmouse

Tufted Titmouse

“It is a graceful little bird, lively and quick-tempered, always on the go, flying continually from tree to tree, carefully inspecting the branches, hanging from the tip ends of the slenderest of them in all sorts of positions, often head downward, swaying this way and that with its flexible support and never letting go its hold, while it examines all buds that it suspects of containing worms, and tears these buds to pieces in order to get at the grubs and insect eggs they contain. It is calculated that a titmouse consumes three hundred thousand insect eggs a year, and certainly few birds have larger families to provide for! Twenty or more little ones all huddled together in the same nest are not too great a strain on the parent’s energy and industry. The mother bird has to examine buds and the fissures in[205]the bark of trees in order to find grubs, spiders, caterpillars, worms of every kind, and feed a score of beaks always open and demanding food in the bottom of the nest. She comes with a caterpillar, the brood is all excitement, twenty mouths fly open, but only one receives the morsel, leaving nineteen still expectant. Then away flies the titmouse again without an instant’s pause, to seek more food. Thus back and forth she flies, without rest and without weariness; and by the time the twentieth mouth is fed the first one is again open, and has been open a good while, clamoring for more.

“I will leave you to guess how many worms are eaten in a day by such a household; and I will also let you reach your own conclusions regarding the value of these birds as caterpillar-hunters among our fruit-trees. Complaint is made, I know, that they tear open the buds and destroy them; but the harm they do is only apparent. When they pluck a bud it is to get out some tiny larva lodged between two scales, and not to harm the young leaves or flowers that are forming. It is better that this wormy bud should perish; it would not have produced anything, and the enemy lodged within it would have produced countless others to ravage the tree the next year.”

“Then the titmouse does not feed on vegetable matter?” asked Louis.

“No, except perhaps occasionally on a few seeds, such as those of hemp. The bird requires animal food; small insects of all kinds, their eggs and larvæ,[206]suit it best. Its appetite for prey is so keen that it has the courage to attack little, disabled birds or those caught in snares, pecking at their skulls and greedily devouring their brains. It is true that the titmouse is remarkably courageous despite its smallness of size; it is extremely quick and quarrelsome, and a regular little ogre in time of famine. Its beak is conical, strong, short, and pointed; and its claws end in hooked nails designed for seizing their victims, like the talons of birds of prey. With these the bird grasps its food and conveys it to its beak, like the parrot.

“At the end of the brooding season the tomtits all assemble in companies of one or two families each and travel together by short stages. These companies appear to have a leader, probably the father or the mother, and every now and then they are called together from one tree to another, after which they separate again, only to reunite once more at the leader’s summons. Their flight is short and irregular: they scatter through the woods, gardens, fields, and orchards, inspecting trees and bushes on the way and picking up larvæ and insects.

“The titmouse family is made up of many species. We have eight in our country, but I shall speak only of the principal ones.

“The coal-tit is the largest, being of about the redbreast’s size. It is bluish gray on the back and yellow underneath. The head is of a beautiful glossy black, and a wide stripe of the same color runs down the middle of the chest and stomach and[207]around the eyes, which are also set off by a large white spot. The large wing-feathers are edged with ashy blue.

“This bird is very common in copses and gardens, and is the one we hear in autumn repeating, as it examines the bark of fruit-trees, its cry oftitipoo, titipoo, titipoo. At times this cry has a harsh sound like the rasping of a file, and this has given to the bird, in some neighborhoods, the name of locksmith. It nests in a hollow tree trunk, lining its quarters with some soft, silky material, chiefly fine feathers. Its laying consists of about fifteen white eggs spotted with light red, especially toward the large end. Its family demands not fewer than three hundred caterpillars a day, or their equivalent in vermin of some sort. What the gardener, the nurseryman, and the forester owe this valiant caterpillar-destroyer by the end of the year cannot be calculated. Yet I have seen these very persons angrily thrust an arm into the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree to pull out the coal-tit’s nest and throw the whole thing to the winds,—eggs, feathers, and little birds only a day old. And they thought they were doing something worthy of praise, for according to them the coal-tit eats buds. But I declare that the coal-tit does not eat buds; it eats the little larvæ lodged in the bud’s scales, and its instinct never allows it to molest healthy buds, which contain nothing of any value to the bird. Leave it in peace, then, to pluck the wormy buds, which it can very easily tell from the sound ones.[208]

“The coal-tit sometimes eats hemp-seed or hazelnuts, picking out the edible part with a dexterity of beak and claw—I had almost said hand—possessed by no other bird. The sparrow, chaffinch, goldfinch, and others crush the hemp-seed between their mandibles; the coal-tit grasps it in its claw, carries it to the beak, and makes in the shell a small round opening through which it picks out the meat. The hazelnut is managed with the same skill.

“The blue tit is a beautiful little bird that keeps company with the coal-tit and frequents orchards. It is olive-colored above and yellow underneath, with the top of the head an azure blue, the forehead white, and the cheeks white framed in black. A little collar of black also encircles the back and sides of the neck. The large feathers of the tail and wings are edged with blue. This titmouse, so elegant in plumage, so graceful in its bearing, always running about over the bark of tree trunks and around the branches, always hanging from the flexible boughs, and always pecking and searching, is no whit inferior to the coal-tit in its talent for catching caterpillars. It has been seen in a few hours to clear a rosebush of two thousand plant-lice. Caterpillars and the eggs of insects, especially of those that attack fruit, are its chief food. It is very fond of little birds’ brains, but if need be can get along with hemp-seed. Like the coal-tit, it nests in a hollow tree trunk, its nest being nothing but a heap of small feathers. No other species raises a larger family. The eggs are more than twenty in number,[209]white with reddish spots, especially at the large end.

“Two other tomtits, of less value as caterpillar-destroyers, build their nests with much art. They are the long-tailed titmouse and the penduline.

“The first of these is different from all other tomtits in the length of its tail, which forms more than half the length of the body. This bird lives in the woods during the summer and visits our gardens and orchards only in the winter. It is a small bird, scarcely bigger than a wren, reddish gray on the back and white underneath, with a tinge of red on the stomach and with white nape and cheeks.

“The nest is occasionally built in the fork of some branch in bush or hedge, a few feet from the ground, but oftener it is attached to the trunk of a willow or a poplar. Its shape is that of an elongated oval or, rather, an enormous cocoon enlarged at the base, with an entrance on the side about an inch from the top. The outside is made of lichens such as grow on old tree trunks, having thus the appearance of bark and deceiving the casual observer. Filaments of wool bind the whole compactly together. The dome or roof, ingeniously contrived for shedding rain, is a thick felt of moss and cobweb. The inside is like an oven with a bowl-shaped bottom and high arched top. Its shape and the thick layer of soft feathers lining it make the nest warm and cozy. From sixteen to twenty young birds are packed into the narrow space, which does not exceed the hollow of the hand. By what miracle of orderly arrangement do these twenty little creatures and their[210]mother manage to find room for themselves in this tiny abode, and how can tails of such length develop there? It would be impossible to find anywhere a more economical use of space.”

“How I should like to see the twenty little tomtits snuggling together in that tiny nest!” Emile exclaimed.

“I have had that good fortune,” said his uncle, “and even now I am strangely moved whenever I think of those twenty little heads stretching up from the bottom of the nest, trembling and with open beaks as if their mother had come. I looked for a moment through the opening of the nest at the tiny creatures, and then withdrew. The parents were already at hand, ruffling their feathers with anxiety. Fear nothing, little birds, so watchful of your family; Uncle Paul is not one to commit the crime of touching your nest.”

“Nor Emile, either,” chimed in the boy.

“Nor yet Jules or Louis,” added the last-named.

“I hope not, indeed; for otherwise Uncle Paul would tell you no more stories.

“The penduline’s nest is still more remarkable. This titmouse is found hardly anywhere except along the banks of the lower Rhone. It hangs its nest very high, from the tip of some swaying tree branch by the waterside, so that its young are gently rocked by the breeze from the water. The nest is a sort of oval purse about as large as a quart bottle and pierced on the side near the top by a narrow opening that would hardly admit a man’s thumb. To enter[211]its nest the tomtit, small though it is, must stretch the elastic wall, which yields a little and then contracts again. This purse-shaped abode is made of the cotton-like fluff that flies off in May from the ripe catkins of poplars and willows. The bird gathers this material and then weaves it together with a warp of wool and hemp. The resulting fabric resembles the felt of a coarse hat.

Long-tailed TitmiceLong-tailed Titmice

Long-tailed Titmice

“I am at a loss to understand how the bird manages to weave with its beak and claws a stuff superior to any that the unaided human fingers could produce; and yet it does this with no instruction, with no hesitation, and with no hints from the work of others. At its very first attempt the titmouse puts to shame the studied art of our weavers and fullers. The top or roof of the nest includes in its structure the tip of the branch from which it hangs and also the little twigs growing out of that tip end which serve as a framework for the vault; but the[212]foliage emerges from the sides of the nest and furnishes shade from the sun’s heat. Finally, to secure the nest more firmly, cordage of wool and hemp binds the upper part to the branch and below is worked into the woof of the felt. The inside is lined with poplar fluff of the best quality. It takes a pair of pendulines three weeks of the hardest work to make this marvel.”

“Doesn’t the rain ever get through the covering of the nest?” Emile inquired.

“No; the felt is so thick and so closely woven that even with the hardest rain not a drop of water can leak into the cotton-lined interior.”

“How comfortable the little birds must be in their snug nest! The wind rocks them gently over the water, and from their little window they can see the river flowing below. What is this clever penduline like?”

“It is ash-colored, with brown wings and tail, and a black stripe across the forehead. Its dress is simple, you see, as is always the case with those that possess real merit. The blue tit has rich plumage, but when it comes to nest-building it can only pile feathers on top of one another at the bottom of a tree-hollow. The penduline is of modest appearance, but it builds the most wonderful nest it is possible to find. To each his portion, talent or fine clothes.”

“All of us here choose talent,” declared Jules.

“Never, my children,” urged Uncle Paul, “be untrue to that sentiment.”[213]

“We should have to forget your teachings,” the other replied, “before we could do that.”

“And what are the eggs like?” asked Emile.

“Emile is bound to have all I can tell him about the penduline. Does this builder of felt nests interest you, then, so very much?”

“Yes, it does,” Emile assured him.

“Well, the eggs are quite white and rather long. There are three or four of them to a nest.”

“No more than that, when the other tomtits have twenty?”

“No more; but to make up for it there are two layings a year.”[214]

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