PANURID/E. 



99 



THE BEARDED TITMOUSE. 



Panurus biarmicus (Linnjeus). 



The drainage of the reedy fens and meres has destroyed the 

 former breeding-grounds of the Bearded Tit in Sussex, Kent, Essex, 

 Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire ; perhaps — 

 aided by the greed of collectors — even in Suffolk. The places where 

 the bird can now be observed in the nesting-season are mostly in the 

 Broad-district of Norfolk, with, perhaps, one locality in Devonshire. 

 As a visitor it has twice occurred in Cornwall ; while it has been 

 recorded in Dorset, and along the Thames valley to Gloucestershire ; 

 as well as in Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire. It is a resident 

 species in England, seldom wandering far from its usual haunts ; and 

 if our indigenous birds should be exterminated, there is little hope 

 of their place being supplied by migrants from the Continent. 



An exceptional wanderer to Heligoland, and rare in Holstein and 

 Germany east of the Moselle, the Bearded Tit becomes compara- 

 tively common in the great reed-beds of Holland ; visiting Belgium 

 in autumn and Luxembourg in winter, to escape the severity of the 

 weather. In France it is principally found in the valley and the 

 delta of the Rhone, and in the marshes below Narbonne. In Spain 

 I observed it in considerable numbers on the Albufera lake, near 

 Valencia, where it is resident ; as it is also in the marshes of Italy 

 and Sicily. It is found in suitable situations in Poland, Austro- 



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