BEARDED PINXOCK. 607 



and when disturbed betake themselves to the ground or the 

 lower parts of the plants, where they creep and skulk in the 

 manner of the Reedlings. Their flight is quick and undulated, 

 but they are seldom seen proceeding to a distance, the flocks, 

 as observed by a writer in the Magazine of Natural History, 

 " just topping the reeds in their flight, and uttering in full 

 chorus their sweetly musical note. It may be compared to 

 the music of very small cymbals, is clear and ringing, though 

 soft, and corresponds well with the delicacy and beauty of 

 the form and colour of the birds." This circumstance indi- 

 cates their greater affinity to the Passerine birds than to the 

 Tits, and the same may be said of their mode of feeding. 

 During the autumn and winter they live chiefly on the seeds 

 of the reeds, which they pick from the husks ; but they also, 

 as is related by i\Ir Dykes, feed upon Succinea amphibia and 

 Pupa muscorum, he having found " the crop of one, which 

 was not larger than a hazel nut, containing twenty of the 

 former and some of them of a good size," together with four of 

 the latter. Now, none of the Parinne, nor indeed any bird of the 

 whole order of the Cantatores, has a crop, which on the other 

 hand occurs in a greater or less degree of development in all 

 the Deglubitores. The nest of this bird, according to Mr 

 Hoy, " is composed on the outside with the dead leaves of the 

 reed and sedge, intermixed with a few pieces of grass, and in- 

 variably lined with the tops of the reed, somewhat in the 

 manner of the nest of the Reed Wren. It is generally placed 

 in a tuft of coarse grass or rushes near the ground, on the 

 margin of the dikes, in the fen ; but also sometimes fixed 

 among the I'eeds that are broken down, but never suspended 

 between the stems." The eggs, five or six in number, are 

 eight and a half twelfths in length, six and three-fourths in 

 breadth, white, with a few light red lines and dots. 



Young. — When fledged, the young have the upper parts of 



a very pale light red, the lower much paler, with the fore-neck 



approaching to white. The upper part of the head and the 



middle of the back arc patched with black in longitudinal 



streaks ; the wings and tail nearly as in the female. 



