150 



BIRDS. 



5. THE BEARDED EEEDLING. 



The Bearded Reedling, more generally known perhaps 

 as the Bearded Tit, and erroneously classed by many with 

 the next family, is rare nowadays, confined, so far as its 

 range in these islands is concerned, to the south of Eng- 

 land, while its breeding is restricted to the district of 



the Norfolk Broads. 

 There the marsh- 

 men know it as the 

 " reed-pheasant," in 

 allusion to its great 

 length of tail. The 

 bird is easily distin- 

 guished by its prom- 

 inent whiskers, or 

 "beard," which are 

 black-and-white in 

 the male, brown in 

 the female. Its 

 food consists chief- 

 ly of molluscs and 

 the seeds of water- 

 plants. In April, 

 it weaves its cup- 

 shaped nest among the decayed reeds. Eggs, 5 to 7, ^ 

 inch; cream-coloured, with brown lines. Though this is 

 one of our resident birds, a number are suspected to cross 

 and recross the Channel each year. 



6. THE TITS OK TITMICE, 



[These active little birds are, in their movements, aptly 

 compared with mice, and have no song worth the name. 

 They are easily attracted to the garden in the winter 

 months by a lump of suet or half a cocoa-nut suspended 

 from a tree. Six residents; two rare visitors.] 



