making any fuss about it. He is insulted, but he does not wish to make a scene. Besides, he is smaller.
The catkins, too, are now hanging on the alders, and on these also, or—if any one prefers it—on the insects in them, the blue-tits feed. They, I think, prefer the catkins, but I will not be sure.
Whenever practicable they grasp a catkin with one claw, and the twig from which it hangs, and which is their main support, with the other. Often, however, they grasp catkin and twig together with both claws, and, standing thus, peck down upon them like ("parva si magnis licet comparare") a crow or hawk upon some dead or living creature. Or, again, they will hang head downwards from, and pecking at, a bunch of the catkins, without any more substantial support, or, with one claw grasping one twig, will, with the other, hold a catkin belonging to another twig up to the beak, like a parrot. The claws of tits are evidently of high value as seizers and holders, if not quite as "pickers and stealers." They are much more than mere rivets for fixing themselves on a perch. To see one of these little birds, whilst straddled in this way, pull the catkin towards it, is most interesting and very pretty. The little legs are so thin and delicate that one must be very close or get a very steady look through the glasses, both to see, and, at the same time, distinguish them from the twigs.
The coal-tit is even more parrot or, rather, squirrel-like, and one can make out his actions better, for he sits upright—one may almost say—on the ground beneath a fir-tree, supporting himself with his tail and one claw, whilst the other grasps a fir-cone at which he pecks. At least I think it was a fir-cone, and I
