1 NOVEMBER 1935, Page 16

House•eating Birds

A dweller in Harrogate has noticed a habit of the great tit which has been exactly repeated in a Wiltshire house. The account of the proceeding is thus:

" We feed the birds on a window lodge and I have discovered that at a window where there is no food provided they are helping themselves to a piece of the house, i.e., the plaster between the :window frame and the lintel ; the house has boon newly painted and the limo is covered with green paint. During the summer When the windows are wide open, they have come in and eaten tiny strips of wall-paper and I think that they may be responsible for the rather dilapidated state of the splayed part of the wall by the window inside which was faced with plaster. I never noticed the birds pocking at the outside until we had the inside faced with wood. It is the great tits which peck so noisily and energetically and I wonder if you can toll me of any food which would do instead of the lime which we can ill spare."