Only once, in August, 1904, have I caught sight of a party of long-tailed tits in the garden, but a friend who lived hardly a mile away used to tell me that little parties of eight or nine might be seen flying through his orchard nearly every winter. I think he said they called them "churns," or something that sounded like that.

Great-tits are common the whole year round; and very handsome they look when their suits of velvet-black and yellow are at their best. They are constant visitors to the food-stand, and are not baffled by any contrivance for excluding sparrows, but they are not so plucky or so clever at it as tom-tits. They are hectoring, full of bustle and importance, and make themselves generally disagreeable to other birds, but I have seldom, if ever, seen one great-tit attack another. Sometimes one sees a pair of the quietest possible character; on the most affectionate terms with one another they will come to the stand together and appear perfectly oblivious of the presence there of any other birds.

It is not at all uncommon to see a great-tit with a crooked tail, slightly sickle-shaped. It cannot always be the same bird, for it is 16 years since I first noticed a bird with such a tail, and nearly every year still (1912) I see one.

One may often hear a tapping sound in trees and shrubs that is made by a great-tit, and I have watched the bird after considerable tapping draw out a grub of some sort from under the bark. I noticed on another occasion that a tit in making this tapping noise was beating something (through the glass it looked like a beetle) which it held in its beak against a bough of the tree.

Like tom-tits, great-tits will fly off with grains of Indian corn, and, like coal-tits, they are fond of sunflower seeds. (In spite of what Gilbert White says, I have never seen tom-tits here touch sunflower seeds.)

A great-tit has a note very much like the "pink, pink" of a chaffinch, which he occasionally uses.

Though great-tits are, no doubt, handsome birds, they are not nearly so interesting in my opinion as either of the other three common kinds of tit. None of them, indeed, can really compare in interest with that audacious little villain, the tom-tit, or blue-tit, or, as he is called here, blue-cap. He is so full of spirits, so resolute and domineering, I delight to hear his cheery little song, if it is to be called a song.

Tom-tits in abundance come to the food-stand, which in the first instance was specially intended for their benefit. They will come more or less the whole year through if the food is left there, but, of course, many more in winter than in summer, and most of all in February and the beginning of March, when I have counted twelve on the stand at once, but the numbers fall off very quickly towards the middle of March.

I have noticed every year that at certain times of the day, especially from about 12.30 to 1.30, there is a marked increase in numbers. In winter at least no five minutes passes without one or more birds appearing, but at mid-day, and again to a lesser extent just before it begins to get dark, they seem literally to swarm.

I have found that all tits, as well as sparrows and robins, prefer a mixture of bread and fat to fat alone. During February and March, 1897, I weighed all the bread and fat consumed on the food-stand and found that it was as nearly as possible eleven pounds. Lately I have added cocoanuts to the bill of fare; they are appreciated by the tits, but blackbirds, robins and thrushes prefer the bread and fat mixture, or rather they do not seem to care at all for the cocoanuts.

It is curious to see how quickly birds discover that food has been put out on the stand. One year, after the receptacles had been empty for weeks in the summer, I put in some fat, and in less than five minutes a tom-tit was there. Another time I made a longish block of wood, bored nearly through with holes, which were filled with fat smoothed off level with the surface. This block was hung with the holes downwards, so that from above it could look like a bit of wood only. It was hung up at 10.30 a.m., and at 11.30 a tom-tit had found it out, and was eating away at the fat as he clung to the block back downwards.

Tom-tits, unlike great-tits, bully one another most unmercifully. They can recognize each other at a great distance. A tom-tit on the food-stand seems to know at once whether another arriving on the nearest tree, some ten yards or more away, is his superior or inferior in prowess. Sometimes he will ruffle up his feathers as if in resentment at threatened intrusion, at other times he is prepared to make way at once. As is the case with a herd of cows on a farm, the relative standing between them seems to be an acknowledged matter and is seldom contested. To us a couple of tom-tits appear as like as two peas if we have them actually in the hand, and though it is easy to understand that they can themselves distinguish differences at close quarters, and may have some other sense than we have to help them, yet it is a marvellous thing that they can do so without doubt or hesitation at a distance of yards.

The whole question as to how birds recognize one another is very interesting. We know that a shepherd can tell one sheep of his flock from another as easily as we can distinguish between two men, but in the feathered face of a bird there seems to us so little room for difference of expression, and, generally speaking, if we take feather by feather the description of one bird will apply equally well to any other of the same species.

Tom-tits as a rule make way for a great-tit, but I have seen them fight occasionally, and the tom-tit does not always come off second-best. They are complete masters of both marsh and coal-tits, neither of which dream of resisting them. They pay scarcely any heed one way or another to sparrows or robins.

Both tom-tits and great-tits in the flush of their spring-time ardour pay to their chosen helpmates the same delicate attentions as do robins. It is always a pretty picture to see them present their offerings of food, but with tits it seems a rather more business-like matter and to lack something of the tender sentiment so plainly shown by the robins.

Though not nearly so plentiful as tom-tits, both marsh and coal-tits are with us more or less all the year round. Of the two, perhaps the marsh-tit is the more regular, sometimes a pair seem to make the garden their headquarters and to be always about, but several years may pass without our seeing one coal-tit; then they will become almost as common as tom-tits for a year or so, when again the number will dwindle down to, it may be, a single pair.

Some years ago all four kinds of tit used to come together to the food-stand, but (with the exception of a pair of coal-tits in the winter of 1910-11) since 1899 tom-tits and great-tits have had it all to themselves, neither marsh nor coal-tits have been there, though both are still frequent visitors to the garden at all times of the year.

In June broods of young tits appear flying from tree to tree in little parties. The old birds tirelessly hunt for food, whilst the greeny-yellowy little ones sit expecting and cheeping among the boughs.

In comparing the marsh and coal-tits together one might imagine that they each originally had the same amount of black allowed them for the head, but while the marsh-tit preferred to have all his in one patch at the back, the coal-tit would have a bit cut out to make a bib for his chin! Of the two the marsh-tit is my favourite. I like the delicate tints of its more sober colouring better than the more contrasted yet more commonplace colours of the coal-tit.

There seems something savouring of meanness about coal-tits; they are cautious and artful and carry away their food presumably to store, there is not time to have swallowed it before they are back again at the stand.

A pair of coal-tits that were here one winter seemed quite demoralised by the food-stand, and to have altogether given up hunting for their natural food.

Both kinds are perfectly amicable together, but a marsh will make way for a coal-tit. The marsh-tit seems to excite special animosity in tom-tits, whilst the coal-tit watches his opportunity, and, nipping in just at the right moment, escapes much persecution. Of the two the coal-tit has a more musical voice and a greater variety of notes, but once (in 1899) when watching a party of marsh-tits, I heard, besides the usual harsh note, a kind of continuous warble every now and then, which I could attribute to no other bird, though I could not actually see a marsh-tit uttering it.

The delightful little wrens are always with us, and the loud, clear ringing notes of their sweet song may be heard almost throughout the year. In July, when most birds are silent, the wren does his best to make up for it, he seems to take a pleasure in having the field to himself, and his song may be heard, and often his alone every day until the middle of August. By that time some of the robins, having recovered from their moult, begin to tune up, and the wren leaves it to them to keep the ball going whilst he retires from the scene to complete his own change of feather. Apparently with such a tiny body to cover that is not a long business, for his bright little voice may be heard again early in September. I always myself feel inclined to say "thank you" at the conclusion of a wren's musical effort, and have been surprised to find that there are people, it may be many people, who do not hear his song at all of themselves, and when their attention is specially drawn think it "only a bird squeaking!"

Wrens never seem to be tame in the same way that robins are, nor do they ever attempt to get at the food on the stand, or to share in the fowls' meals, but they often come close to the windows, creeping up and down the frames, in quest of spiders and other small game.

A sight was reported to me the other day that I would have given a good deal to have seen with my own eyes. When for two days in January (1912) the ground was thickly covered with snow, I put a plate of scraps for the birds in the open porch. In the evening of the second day of snow, when the maid went to light the porch lamp, she saw this plate, as she described it, full of wrens (little birds with their tails turned up over their backs, she called them); there must have been, she thought, certainly not less than fifteen of them. When they saw her they flew off in a flock to the creeper outside, just where for two or three years there has been a wren's nest. Perhaps this little company was made up of the family that owned that nest as their home. In was in 1909 that a wren first built there among the stems of the Virginian creeper close to the front door. The body of the nest was quite hidden between the creeper and the wall, the little entrance-hole alone being visible. We constantly saw the bird going in and out, taking a turn to stretch his wings or bringing home provisions for his household, and often he would sit close by and give vent to his feelings in a joyous burst of song. He appears to have been pleased with the success of his first venture on this site, for he has used the very same nest for the last two years.

A wren has the same directness of flight as a kingfisher or a dipper; it has none of the up and down course of most small birds, but it follows a bee-line to its destination, with rapidly-beating wings, but making comparatively slow progress. I was much struck by this, as one day I watched a wren fly from a low bush to a height of 40 or 50 feet up a poplar, it seemed to take quite an age to get there.