them except whilst hanging on the trunk of the tree perpendicularly and head downwards, and when he stopped and clung to it again he was in precisely the same position. The drop each time might have been from four to six or seven inches. It never appeared to me to be more. Both the blue-tit, therefore, and the wren have acquired the habit of creeping about the trunks of trees, in search, presumably, of insects or spiders, as do the tree-creepers, woodpeckers, and nut-hatch. The former of them can descend the trunk, but not, it would appear, without the aid of its wings, either wholly or in part. For the wren, I saw him descend once, as I think, in a quick side-eye-shot; but some nettles intervened, and I cannot be sure."
"On the next morning I am at the same grove, and, about seven, a good many blue-tits fly into it, one of which is soon busily occupied on the trunk of a fir-tree. I now observe that this bird uses his wings even in ascending the trunk, for though he certainly crawls up it, yet he accompanies each fresh advance, after a pause, with a little flutter, and advance and flutter end commonly together, taking him but a very little way. A tree-creeper on the same tree, who moves deftly about, pressed much flatter to the trunk and never using his wings, gives a good opportunity of comparing the two birds—the professional and the amateur. Now, both according to my memory and my notes, the tits I saw yesterday did not flutter at all while ascending the tree—at any rate, that one which I saw quite close both ascending and descending, on which my note was principally based, did not; for though I saw
