of the most lively indignation against me for having so unjustly robbed it of a lawful prize.  I amused myself with watching it for some time, and then being desirous of seeing how far its evident desire to recapture its booty would overcome its fear of me, I held the rat just before the hole in which it was, when after several attempts, in which its discretion got the better of its valour, it at length screwed up its courage to the sticking-place, came boldly out of the wall, and dragged it out of my hand into the hole.

I know not in what county I. M. lives, nor do I know whether he means to include any part of England in the more northern parts of the world, but I do know that the Stoat is white in the winter in Yorkshire, as I have caught and still more frequently seen specimens of this colour.

* * * * *

THE MARSH TITMOUSE.

I have been much interested this spring at witnessing in two or three instances the tenacity with which the Marsh Titmouse sits on its nest.  Being in a wood near my own house, I perceived a pair of these birds in one of the trees, and having seen them in the same place several times before, and being desirous of finding the nest, I sat down to watch their motions.  After examining me on all sides with much chattering and many gesticulations, indicative of dislike and suspicion, the female flew to the root of a tree, three or four yards off, and disappeared, as she had gone to the opposite side of the tree to that on which I sat; and as there were several holes about the root I was at a loss to know in which the nest was built, and began to strike the root with a stick, expecting her to fly out, but nothing appeared.  I then examined the holes one by one, and whilst doing so heard her hissing and puffing from within, in such a way that if I had not known she was there I should have thought it was a snake rather than a bird.  However, as she would not come out, and the hole was so small that I could not get my hand in, I was obliged to raise the siege until next morning, when I returned armed with a hammer and chisel with which to storm her citadel.  As the wood was sound, the hole small, and the nest six or eight inches within the tree, I was five or ten minutes before I could get to it, during which I gave her repeated opportunities of escaping if she chose; but she still sat on her nest, puffing and pecking at the stick that I thrust in in order to drive her off.  She at last crept to the further edge of the nest, which I then took out, as I wanted it for one of my friends who is a collector of eggs, but on attempting to blow one I found they had been sat upon too long, and I then felt desirous of seeing whether the old bird would hatch them after having her nest torn from under her, and I turned back to the tree whence I had taken them, and found her still sitting in the hole where I had left her.  I regret to add that the humane part of my experiment did not succeed, for although she remained after I had returned the nest to its place, she left it immediately after, and did not return to it again.