The Blue-tit is one of our best known and best liked British birds. In the autumn great numbers arrive on our east coasts. The Blue-tit, especially, devours a powerful tiny beetle with the ominous name of Scolytus destructor, which works its way from the chrysalis stage at the end of a tunnel bored by the mother beetle in the tree, until it comes out, after biting a round hole in the
USEFUL.
BLUE TITMOUSE. GOLD-CRESTED WREN.
bark, as a perfect beetle. By this small creature’s labours the bark is separated to such an extent from the tree that it cannot live long. A plague of other small wood-boring beetles of like habits destroyed 1,500,000 trees in the Harz Forest one season, when the priests even prayed in their churches for relief from this awful pest. And yet there are still numbers of country gardeners who look upon the Blue-tit, especially, as one of their worst enemies.
A house with large grounds in our populous London suburb is a large boys’ school—a private one. One day I saw a pretty sight, one that did credit to the character of the boys there. Between the playground and the cricket field is an iron fence, having a wide gate. For some time this has not been properly closed, and just within the hole in the tubular iron post, into which the fastening bolt ought to run, a pair of Blue-Tits have their nest. As I approached it, a number of gaping mouths were thrust up for food. As the nestlings are fed with aphides and gooseberry moths and the old birds have a large family to feed, and they prey also on grubs and maggots, it is well for the vegetable garden close by.