92 EPPING FOREST.
Blue Titmouse. Common all the year.
Cole Titmouse. Not uncommon in gardens, as well as in
some parts of the Forest.
Harsh Titmouse. Common in Wanstead Park and in low-
lying parts of the Forest. Its name is misleading, as it
is not a marsh bird in any sense.
Longtailed Titmouse. Resident and not uncommon. Fam-
ilies of ten or more keep together throughout the winter
and flit from tree to tree, scouring them for insects.
They never come to the lump of fat which is put out-
side my house for the other titmice.
Sand-Martin. Numbers breed in holes in the railway cut-
LONGTAILED TITS.
ting between Leytonstone and Wanstead. They are the
earliest of the swallows to appear, often arriving in
March.
House-Martin. Not so common as they ought to be. The
vast number of sparrows in the neighbourhood is hostile
to their increase. A friend and neighbour increased the
number of house-martins' nests on his house from two to
ninety, simply by waging unsparing war on the sparrows.
Chimney Swallow. In the late summer these birds gather
in thousands to roost in the reed-bed in the pond in
Cook's Folly. This seems to be the general rendezvous
for the district, and at sunset they may be seen flying in
small companies from every direction towards this point.
The confused noise as they swarm like bees to gain a
foothold among the reeds is most remarkable. In Au-
gust 1855 a pure white swallow was observed at Epping.