BEARDED TITMOUSE. 153 



reedy parts of Surlingliam broad^ and remains there 

 tliroughout tlie year." The provincial name of "Eeed 

 Pheasant" is here applied to this species, from its 

 miniature resemblance to the nobler " longtails." 



Having adopted the classification of Yarrell in this 

 work, I have, according to his arrangement, and 

 indeed that of foreign as well as British ornithologists 

 generally (with the exception of Macgillivray), re- 

 tained this bird amongst, or rather appended to, the 

 Parince or titmice. I cannot help feeling, however, 

 that Macgillivray, guided by an examination of its 

 digestive organs, was right in considering it more 

 alhed to the FringiUine than the Parine group, and 

 especially to the black-headed bunting (Emberiza 

 schoeniclus), its constant companion in the fenny dis- 

 tricts. In its active and pendulous actions, and per- 

 haps, also, in its gregarious habits in winter, it seems 

 alone referable to the tit tribe, resembling more par- 

 ticularly the long-tailed tit, yet even this species 

 has been long removed by naturalists from the true 

 Parince, and placed in a separate genus. In internal 

 structure and the character of its food its affinity to 

 the tits, as shown by Macgillivray, is very remote. 

 It has not, he says, *^the bristle-tipped tongue of a 

 tit, and its oesophagus is dilated towards the right 

 side, as in aU the birds which I have referred to the 

 order of Huskers. 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 Mr. 

 Dykes, feed upon Succinia 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 Parince, nor indeed any bird 

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

 the other hand occurs in a greater or less degree of 



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