BEARDED TIT. S5S 



it contained also four of the Pup<i muscorum. Of all these 

 niollusca the shell was quite uninjured ; which, when the fra- 

 gile nature of that of the Succinca is considered, is somewhat 

 extraordinary. The shell appears to be passed into the sto- 

 mach in the same perfect state, as I discovered one which I 

 presume had been recently swallowed, quite entire. They 

 are not, however, voided in this state, for I found the stomach 

 to be full of small fragments of shell, in a greater or less de- 

 gree of decomposition. This work of destruction is accom- 

 plished by the action of the stomach, aided by the tritura- 

 tion of numerous sharp angular fragments of quartz, which 

 had been instinctively swallowed, and by which the minute 

 division of the shells is most completely effected." The 

 Bearded Tits, like the Long-tailed Tits, last described, keep 

 together in families during autumn and winter ; two or three 

 families occasionally roving together in a small flock. 



South and west of London, the Bearded Tit has been 

 found in Surrey about some ponds near Godalming ; in Sus- 

 sex near Winchelsea ; and on the banks of the Thames from 

 London upwards as far as Oxford. Pennant says it has been 

 taken near Gloucester. In Cornwall, as I learn from Mr. 

 Rodd, it is considered very rare ; a single specimen was ob- 

 tained in the neighbourhood of Helston, which is now in the 

 collection made by the late Humphrey Grylls, Esq. It is 

 not included in the Catalogue of the Birds of Shropshire and 

 North Wales, lately published in the Annals of Natuml 

 History, by Uiy friend Mr. Thomas Eyton ; but is said to 

 have been taken in Lancashire ; and a single specimen is re- 

 corded as Irish by Mr. Thompson, on the authority of Mr. 

 W. S. Wall, a bird preserver in Dublin, which example was 

 received from the banks of the Shannon. 



Eastward from London the Bearded Tit inhabits the va- 

 rious reed beds on the banks of the Thames, both in Kent 

 and Essex. It is found also in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Nor- 



VOL. T. 2 a 



