Cassell's book of birds; vol. 2

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

The PENDULINE TITMICE (Ægithalus) are small, slenderly-formed birds, with awl-shaped beaks, scarcely perceptibly curved at the tip; short, blunt wings, in which the third, fourth, and fifth quills are the longest, and nearly of equal length; and moderate-sized tails, slightly incised at the extremity. The plumage is very lax, and the males more brightly and beautifully coloured than the females. The young differ in their appearance from both parents.

THE TRUE PENDULINE TITMOUSE.

The TRUE PENDULINE TITMOUSE (Ægithalus pendulinus) is greyish red on the upper part of its body, on the under side whitish, shaded with rust-red on the breast; a black stripe, beginning at the cheeks, passes across the eyes to the region of the ear; the quills and tail-feathers are blackish, with light borders; the eye is brown, the beak of various shades of black, whitish at its margins; the feet are black or greyish black. The female is more dusky, and has less black upon the brow and sides of the head than her mate. In the young the black cheek-stripes are not indicated. The upper portion of the body is reddish grey. This species is from four inches to four and a half long, and from six to six and a half broad; the wing measures two inches and a quarter, and the tail one inch and three-quarters.

These elegant little birds inhabit all the eastern parts of Europe and a large portion of Asia, and their active, sprightly demeanour entitles them to a place among the most interesting members of the family to which they belong. From morning to night they are almost incessantly in motion, climbing nimbly among the reeds, or bopping from twig to twig, in search of the insects and larvæ upon which they subsist. They generally, however, keep well sheltered beneath the foliage, where their presence is constantly betrayed by the frequent utterance of their clear, chirping note. Whether this species migrates is as yet undecided; it is, nevertheless, certain that it disappears from its native haunts about September or October, and does not return until March.

"Proverbial as the nests of the Tits are for beauty of structure," says Mr. Gould, "none are more remarkable and curious than that of the present species; it is constructed of the soft down of the poplar or willow, and this substance, which closely resembles cotton wool, is woven together with admirable ingenuity, so as to form a flask-shaped nest with a lateral opening into the internal chamber. It is suspended at the extremity of a drooping branch of a willow, or any similar tree hanging over the water."

We are indebted to Baldamus not only for a very complete description of the remarkable nest made by these birds, but also for a detailed account of the mode of building it. "I have had an opportunity," writes that naturalist, "of watching during seven weeks the daily operations of a pair of these ingenious little builders, and have carefully examined upwards of thirty nests." He observed, moreover, the whole process of their construction, and procured several in different stages of completion. The situation chosen was generally in the vicinity of a swamp, and the nests were almost invariably suspended to the innermost twigs of the branches of a willow tree, usually at an elevation of twelve or fourteen feet from the ground, although some were at a height of from twenty to thirty feet, and one example was obtained from the very summit of a high tree.

In building these admirable structures the two sexes seem to emulate each other in industry and perseverance, for without this, it is difficult to conceive how such an edifice can be completed in the short space of about fourteen days.

"The mode of proceeding in the construction of one of these nests," continues the same writer, "is as follows:—First of all the bird begins by winding a quantity of wool, goats' hair, bast, or hempen thread, around the selected twig, at a part where it becomes forked, and between the forks are laid the foundations of the walls of the nest, which thus becomes securely fixed; from this basis a sort of felt-work is prolonged into the shape of a shallow basket, in which condition it was formerly thought to be a supernumerary nest, constructed for the accommodation of the male bird. As, however, the work proceeds, the walls are still further produced by an accumulation of fitting materials, which now consist of down collected from poplar and willow trees, interwoven with threads of bast, wool, and hair, while the fibres of vegetable cotton are glued and matted together by the aid of saliva supplied by the birds themselves. The structure now presents the appearance of a basket with thick rounded walls, and the next part of the process is to construct the side entrance, which terminates in a small round hole, while the other side also has a passage from below; the one with the round opening is now provided with a tube of from one to three inches long, while the other remains open, and only felted and smoothed down at the edges; lastly, the bottom of the inside of the nest is thickly carpeted with loose unrolled vegetable wool, and the structure is at length completed. The nest now appears a round ball or bag, from six to eight inches in depth, and from four to five in width, with a round entrance like the neck of a bottle, which at first bending down soon stands out horizontally towards the entrance, which is circular, and provided with a slightly thickened margin."

"It is impossible to confound such a nest with that of any other bird, and, therefore, we are quite assured that the Bottle Tit has repeatedly made its nest in Germany, where deserted nests are frequently found in winter by men employed in clearing away the reeds in various localities."

The eggs, according to Baldamus, are usually seven in number, and have a smooth, delicate, pure white shell, which, owing to its transparency, appears pale red until it is emptied of its contents. We are told, on good authority, that both parents assist in the process of incubation. The young are reared principally upon small caterpillars, flies, and beetles.