TOM-TITS.
rTo THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIE,-I have read the letters in the Spectator about tom-tits, and think that an account of how we have fed them for many years past may interest some of your readers. Every winter we put out in front of the dining-room window a bird-stand. This consists of a small tree cut out of the plantation, about six feet high ; this has the top cut off and a small table nailed on ; the lower end is pointed and driven into the ground; this leaves the table about four or five feet from the ground. Most of the branches are cut off, leaving five or six only, and these
as wide apart as possible, and at different heights. On these branches we hang small baskets made of halves of walnut- shells, by pieces of silk about a foot long. These can only be reached by the tom-tits in two ways, either by drawing the shells up with claw and beak, or by clinging on to the shell, when they spin round and round as they feed on the lard with which the shells are filled. It is wonderful to see how short a time it takes the tom-tits to learn this; and in cold weather there are generally four or five of them busily feeding. They are most amusing to watch, and our town friends have asked at times, "Where do you get those performing birds from ? " The table is supplied with bread for the robins, chaffinches, &c., and with monkey-nuts, which the tom-tits soon learn to smash up, and with Spanish nuts, which the nuthatches carry off very quickly, and hide in cracks of the bark of the larger trees. When they have cleared the table, they commence to eat the the nuts, and can be both seen and heard cracking the shells with their powerful beaks.—I am, Sir, &c., J. B.-
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