64 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS 



(Gurney, ZooL, 1889, p. 291). In February 1819 

 large flocks were seen at Burlingham [Trans. Norf. 

 Nat. Soc, iii. p. 260). It used to be found in 

 Huntingdon and Cambridgeshire before Whittlesea 

 Mere was drained in 1851, and was abundant in 

 Lincolnshire (Cordeaux, p. 40). In Essex it was 

 once common in the marshes below Barking Creek, 

 where it was known as the Reed Pheasant, and 

 in the reed beds at Dagenham and Tollesbury until 

 the year 1858. 



When Graves published the 2nd edition of his 

 "British Ornithology" in 1821, he wrote: "The 

 Bearded Titmouse is found in considerable abun- 

 dance in the extensive tracts of reedland from Wool- 

 wich to Erith in Kent, and is occasionally seen in 

 the like situation in various places adjacent to 

 London. " We have found it," he says, " on the 

 side of the Surrey Canal on Sydenham Common, 

 also on the roadside leading from Bermondsey to 

 Deptford, called Blue Anchor Lane, and have seen 

 it in numbers about Erith." From all these locali- 

 ties it has long since disappeared. 



In Sussex, Montagu met with it amongst the 

 reed beds near Winchelsea, and Borrer procured 

 specimens from Amberley and Lancing. In Devon- 

 shire, Topsham and Thorverton, on the Exe, were 

 formerly localities for this bird, and it has been met 

 with on the Fleet at Abbotsbury, Dorsetshire, as well 

 as accidentally in Cornwall. 



Its present status in Norfolk has been recently 

 (1899) traced with much care by Mr. J. H. Gurney 



