In the house, if kept in a cage, this should be of iron wire, and bell-shaped, for the advantage of seeing the birds twirl about, and drop from one stick to another like monkeys. If they be allowed to range, it is necessary to supply them with abundance of the food they like, for if this fails they will attack the other birds, and pierce their heads to eat the brain; when once they have tasted this food there is no longer safety for the birds around them, whatever their size may be. I have seen an oxeye attack a quail and kill it in this way. Some bird-catchers say that the tits with forked tails are alone addicted to this, but they are mistaken; it is certainly true that some are more cruel than others, experience teaches us this every day. FOOD.--When wild they feed on insects, seeds, and berries, destroy many smooth caterpillars, flies, grasshoppers, gnats, and small butterflies, and climb about the trees like woodpeckers, seeking in the moss the eggs and grubs of insects. In autumn and winter they eat all kinds of seeds, especially hemp-seed, fir, and pine-seed, oats, kernels of fruit, mast nuts, and occasionally flesh. They hold these things in their claws, tear them with their beak, and skin them with their tongue. In the house they will eat any thing on the table, meat, bread, cheese, vegetables, sweet almonds, walnuts, filberts, lard, and all sorts of fat, all pastes adapted for other birds; so that we must not attribute their early death to the delicacy of the tits, but to the want of care in those that have them. The more they eat the more they sing, and the less inclined they are to attack their companions. They drink often, and enjoy bathing. BREEDING.--The oxeye builds in a hole of a tree or wall, sometimes in the forsaken nest of a squirrel, crow, or woodpecker. It lays on an artless bed of moss, wool, and feathers, eight or ten whitish eggs, sprinkled with large and small spots mixed with streaks of dark red, particularly at the large end, where they form a coronet. The young do not quit the nest till they can fly well. The under parts of the body are pale yellow; and the black about them is not glossy as in the old birds. DISEASES.--In a cage, this species is subject to vertigo or giddiness, occasioned by feeding too much on hemp-seed, which heats it and makes it twirl about too much. To cure the disorder, the bird should be kept for some time in a small square cage, or permitted to range the room. From the same cause often arises atrophy, consumption, and even gout, all which proves the injurious qualities of hemp-seed; but with care on this point and a little attention it may live eight or ten years.