They feed on seeds and insects, and in the house they should be given bruised hemp-seed, poppy-seed, white bread, and ants’ eggs. On this food they may be preserved for several years. Their song is sweet, but sad and melancholy; their attitudes are graceful, and often when they hop they flutter their wings and tail. They build on the ground or in clefts of rocks, which has given them the name of rock larks[108].
THE OXEYE, OR GREATER TIT[109].
Parus major, Linnæus; La grosse Mésange, ou Charbonnière, Buffon; Die Kohlmeise, Bechstein.
This well-known bird is five inches and five-sixths in length, of which the tail measures two and a half. The beak is blackish, conical, firm, pointed, and without slope, as are the beaks of the other tits; the iris is dark brown; the shanks are nine lines high, and lead blue; the claws are sharp, and adapted for climbing; the upper part of the head is of a brilliant black, which is joined to the black of the throat by a line of the same colour that borders and sets off the white of the cheeks and temples; the nape is greenish yellow, with some mixture of white; the back is fine olive, and the rump pale ash grey; the breast and belly are a yellowish green, divided lengthways by a black line.
The female is smaller, the black on the head and the yellow on the nape are less bright; the line that runs down the belly is narrower and shorter, at least it is lost at the part where in the male it is widest; this marks the difference between young males and females, which are alike in other respects.
Habitation.—In its wild state it is found throughout the old world, but in the greatest numbers in mountainous countries, where orchards and groves abound, and woods of beech, oak, and similar trees, are found alternately with those of fir. Though these birds do not migrate, yet in autumn they assemble and pass the winter together, seeking their food amongst orchards and woods. In autumn, as soon as the bird-catchers see these flights of tits succeed each other quickly, they call it their passage, and immediately prepare snares for taking them. In March each pair separates and prepares for breeding.
In the house, if kept in a cage, this should be of iron wire, and bell-shaped, for the advantage of seeing the birds twirl about, and drop from one stick to another like monkeys. If they be allowed to range, it is necessary to supply them with abundance of the food they like, for if this fails they will attack the other birds, and pierce their heads to eat the brain; when once they have tasted this food there is no longer safety for the birds around them, whatever their size may be. I have seen an oxeye attack a quail and kill it in this way. Some bird-catchers say that the tits with forked tails are alone addicted to this, but they are mistaken; it is certainly true that some are more cruel than others, experience teaches us this every day.
Food.—When wild they feed on insects, seeds, and berries, destroy many smooth caterpillars, flies, grasshoppers, gnats, and small butterflies, and climb about the trees like woodpeckers, seeking in the moss the eggs and grubs of insects. In autumn and winter they eat all kinds of seeds, especially hemp-seed, fir, and pine-seed, oats, kernels of fruit, mast nuts, and occasionally flesh. They hold these things in their claws, tear them with their beak, and skin them with their tongue.