Chapter 6 | The Tomtits | Featherland

It was all very well for Mrs Puss to get up the great cedar-tree and put her paw down the great hole, but if it had been the thorn-tree, that was just coming out all over beautiful white scented blossoms, hanging in long silvery wreaths, Mrs Puss would have found out her mistake. There was a hole there, and there was a nest in it, but pussy’s paw could no more have gone down it than a cannon-ball would run through a tobacco-pipe. Such a tiny round hole; such a depth; and such a tiny little round pair of birds, with blue and white heads, green backs, and yellow breasts, with a black stripe down the centre; such tiny black beaks; in short, such a tiny pair of tits were Tom and Tomasina, who had made their nest right down at the bottom of this little hole. Bustling, busy little bodies they were, too, popping in and out with little bits of soft wool, down, or small feathers; and then, tiniest of all were first about a dozen morsels of eggs, and then the nest full of little callow birds, with all that dozen of little beaks up and open for food. In and out, in and out, till any one would have thought the little tomtit wings would have been tired out; but, no; in and out still, and backwards and forwards, bringing tiny grubs and caterpillars, and all manner of little insects in those little open beaks, to satisfy the craving little family at home. Tom-tit told his wife that he could not understand it, but thought that when they were mated all they would have to do would be to fly about the garden, hopping from twig to twig, and picking all the little buds through the long sunshiny days, and sleeping at night upon some high, safe bough, rolled up like little balls of feathers.

“Oh! but,” said Mrs Tit, “only to think of it; such a tiny body as I am to have twelve children, and all the while that great gawky, Mrs Stockdove, only to have one, for the other she had rolled out of the nest and was killed.”

“Nest,” said Tom, “I never saw such a nest; nothing but a few sticks laid across one another. No wonder the poor little thing rolled out; there was nothing to save it. But it is not every one who has so tidy and neat a little body for a wife as I have. So come, wifey, bustle about, for the children are all crying as though they had not eaten for a week; and I declare that I’m as hungry as any of them.”

And away flew the little tits, ridding the garden of thousands of insect plagues, and clearing off nuisances that would have destroyed half the fruit and vegetables in the garden. As for the little crawling flies and other insects, it was wonderful how fast they were snapped up; and though people would say that Tom-tit and his wife did a great deal of mischief by pecking the buds, it was quite a mistake; for though they pecked the buds, it was almost always when some sly little insect had made itself a hole in the bud, where it would have laid eggs, and its young would have totally destroyed the tree. Todkins, the old gardener, used to be in a fine way about it, and laid all sorts of charges against not only Tom-tit but all the rest of the birds, and used to want to set traps, and spread poisoned wheat, and get guns to shoot them with; but the master of Greenlawn would not let him; so the old man used to grumble and say there would be no fruit and no vegetables, for the birds would eat everything up, seed, fruit, and all. But the master of Greenlawn knew best, for he thought that if the birds were killed or frightened away, the insects, and grubs, and caterpillars, and slugs, and snails, and all sorts of other uncomfortable things, would come and eat the fruit and vegetables, and eat them all up, while the birds would be sure to leave some. And, sure enough, he was quite right, for somebody else, who used to kill and frighten away all the birds, had all his crops destroyed; while at Greenlawn, where there were hundreds and hundreds of birds, there was always plenty of fruit and vegetables; for the birds very seldom touched the fruit if they could get plenty of other food. Certainly sometimes Mr Sparrow used to pick out the finest and ripest cherries, or have a good peck at a juicy pear. The starlings, too, would gobble down the elder-berries, and sometimes the greenfinches used to go to see how the radish seeds were getting on, and taking tight hold of the thread-like shoots, pull them out of the ground, and leave them upon the top of the bed, fast asleep, for they never grew any more. Still, take it altogether, there was always twice as much fruit where there were plenty of birds, as where they were all driven away.