THE PAIRING SEASON.
" WHEN is the cold weather coming?" This is a question every one has been asking day by day, but so far no answer has been forthcoming, and meanwhile the winter is fast speeding away and the footstep of spring is heard in the distance. Thrushes were singing on New Year's Day, and the birds could hardly wait for St. Valentine to bless their pairing. "Apartments to Let." This notice is posted all over the garden of birds each year in the very early spring, usually as early as March; but this year the notices had to be got out in a hurry, for tenants began looking out for rooms before they were ready, and the land- lord is already visiting the tiny tenements to see if any have been taken. The bird-boxes are mostly made of hollowed larch-logs with movable tops, and these make cosy homes for the different titmice,—blue-tits, big-tits, and marsh-tits; as yet the cole-tit has refused to take one of these fancy dwellings, though he is at this moment inspecting a hollow stump. Luckily, sparrows have not found out these apart- ments, which is fortunate ; for a sparrow is a presuming, vulgar bird, and quite devoid of conscience. A fly-catcher had a beautiful nest on a ledge of the trellis, half-hidden by starry clematis and rose-tipped gloire-de-dijon blossoms ; it appeared a dangerous place for a home to the uninitiated, but the fly-catcher sat, happily peeping over a rose at the passer-by; but a day dawned when she went for a ramble with her mate, leaving another egg beside the two already laid, and a lazy plebeian sparrow and his wife took it into their heads to oust the fly-catchers, and adding a little untidy straw and some streamers of bass-matting, they turned out the eggs, and laid their own instead. The fly-catchers were naturally aggravated, but they had no pluck to stand up for their own rights, and lost heart at once; and after a faint remonstrance left the sparrows masters of their nest. The landlord, however, was displeased, and after the sparrows' eggs were laid, a long ladder was placed against the house and the whole nest destroyed. "Now you see what comes of _taking our home," clicked the fly-catchers, and the sparrows flew off to chatter angrily in the laurels.
The sweetest home in the garden is hardly in the garden, at all, for it is on the window-sill of the room where the mistress dwells. It is a little green square box with a lid which lifts up and down on hinges, and a hole in the side facing south, so that the sun may shine in at the window at will, and bring living, health-giving rays to the inhabitants. On April 7th last a pair of big-tits, hearing tell of these de- lightful apartments, came to inspect them. The hen-bird flew inside and searched the corners well, while her mate clung to the edge of the hole and chattered all sorts of good advice, and wearied her with suggestions ; then they flew away and were not seen again, and the landlord thought the box would be tenantless, for no other bird called to view it. Of course they did not, for the news spread abroad that the big- tits had really taken it, and on May 5th they came early in the morning and put a little moss loosely in the four corners, just a little pinch of moss and no more, and flew away again for two whole days, to talk over their labours quietly, and to make up their minds what to do next. Even on the third day they did not trouble to do much ; and only the four corners were lightly covered as before, but that evening Mrs. Big-Tit took up her abode there, and said to her mate that on the following .morning he must really get to work at a proper nest and stop fooling about, for she meant business, and was going to lay an egg. This thoroughly frightened him, and early next day when he found that she had really fulfilled her threat, he fetched a lot of rough tufts. of hair and scraps of moss and fur to cover up the precious. egg. They neither of them had time to put the little home really into proper order till the 10th, for as she was busy laying her eggs he had most of the fetching and carrying to do by himself; but by the 10th all four corners were well and firmly filled up with moss, and the round centre lined with. hair and fur and a few soft feathers; and the hard tufts had been disentangled and some of the coarsest taken away, and the rest neatly laid so that it might be pulled over the eggs when he and she flew abroad. As far as the landlord could gather, Mrs. Big-Tit, when once she had laid her eleven little white- speckled-with-red eggs, and had made up her mind to sit, never left the nest again till her young were hatched. How her little bones must have ached, and how cramped she- must have got ; but a mother's heart—even in a bird— is possessed with a marvellous patience, to which there is no beginning and no end, and no question of "how" or "where." Hour after hour her faithful mate fed her. When he flew on to the mountain-ash on one side of the window, and uttered his little call-note, she would half rise and peep out of her window, and see whether the coast was clear and no stranger at the big window (of course she did not mind. her mistress), and when she had ascertained all was well, she would give contented little chuckles and twitters in her throat, and he would at once fly down, and clinging to the opening he would drop the dainty morsel into his wife's mouth. Often during the day the lid was lifted, and loving eyes peeped in to see how things were progressing, only to be greeted by a great stretching out of wings and an angry hiss,. as much as to say, 'I know you don't mean any harm, but for goodness' sake do leave me alone.' On May 28th the first little egg was cracked, and a tiny orange-red being, with a square head and great obtruding blind eyes, wriggled into existence and called itself a bird. Not till the 30th was the last little life launched into the world in the window-sill box, and then the serious part of the entertainment began for the father and mother. Backwards and forwards, back- wards and forwards, from early dawn to eventide, they journeyed with tempting green caterpillars, sometimes varied by a fly or two. The advent of either parent on to a bar which supported the eaves was always the signal for a great commotion in the little home ; such whisperings and twitter- ings and struggles to get to the top of the bunch; for it was a trial of patience for the tiny birds to wait while the father and mother looked round and about to see that all was safe. Then was the amusing time to take a peep, and to be greeted by the baby chorus, and to see down eleven little yellow throats, while the long necks were outstretched and little bare wings flapped. Soon the feathers began to creep clown the quills, and by Jane 10th the eyes were open and it became a matter of certainty to visitors that they were really young ox-eyes. Louder and louder became the twittering, and the parents began to look tired and worn, for appetites never flagged, and every day more food was required. " We'll never have a large family again, my dear," said the father as he dropped a big green caterpiller into the gutter by mistake. "I can't think why you lay so many eggs."—" Because I like to be a credit to my race," answered the mother as bravely as she could. "A. big-tit would think it infra dig. to be black- -capish and only lay four eggs."—" I dare say you are right, my dear," answered her husband, as he listened in despair to the cries from the box, "but I think myself that Mrs. Black. (lap is wise in her generation." The mother sighed, she did not care to agree, but she felt worried, and was glad the next spring was a long way off. But the work was nearly over, for by June 16th all the young ones had flown except three backward, timid nestlings, and they followed on the morrow, and silence reigned on that window-sill. This year, already, a pair of blue-tits have been inspecting the same box, but the big-tits saw them come and were so furiously angry that they evidently mean to occupy their old quarters; but it will be interesting to see who gains the day.
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