His cleverness in carrying several worms at once was remarkable, as each had to be killed before it was given to his babies. This entailed a good deal of manipulation with his beak, biting and striking the ground. I have constantly seen him doing this, and finally carrying four worms in a row, to save the trouble of four journeys.
He became absolutely fearless while the very dry weather of June lasted, as all ordinary worms refused to come to the surface of the earth; and he would have got none at all but for my tin box. Not only would he perch on my shoe, or on the box in my lap, but I trained him to peck them out of my hand. Currants dipped in oatmeal, cheese, and gingerbread made pleasant changes of diet, and helped to save the worms, or he would have carried off hundreds in the course of the day.
He was always with me, appearing, as I have said, suddenly and swiftly out of nowhere; in whatever part of the garden I placed my chair, there close to me in half a second would be the dapper little creature, trim, neat, and alert. He was never dishevelled like the sparrows, and when in the late afternoon it would seem as if he must be exhausted, he would go and take an energetic bath, and come and sit beside me to dry his feathers.
Sometimes for days together the garden was forsaken by the squirrels; but to make up for their absence, many little episodes of bird life amused me as I sat out of doors in the sun and the wind.
The tits were shameless thieves, and their ingenuity was surprising. I have watched one of these tiny birds manipulating—if one can use such a word in connection with a beak—a cocoanut shell, which had been turned over upon some nuts on purpose to keep them from him. Cob nuts or walnuts he could not tackle, but almonds were not safe from him, and monkey nuts he was determined to have. I saw him mount the cocoanut shell, and with his head on one side peer into the hole at the top. Satisfied that the coveted food was beneath it, he began to try to lift the heavy shell. With his little beak he pecked and pulled manfully at the outside fibre. He could just raise the shell, but not high enough to get what he wanted.