1C8 THE LAST ENGLISH HOME 



his young ones to eat them too, and make light of the 

 aches which a sharp-edged hard shell swallowed whole 

 must have caused in a delicately-coated stomach. 



They, in their turn, brought up their young on the 

 same Spartan system, and now unlike other Tits, which 

 have most, if not all, of them tender insides, suitable 

 enough for digesting soft insects, but unfit to do justice 

 to anything harder than a seed well steeped in gastric 

 juice the Bearded Tit finds himself the possessor of 

 an honest, sturdy gizzard, which can grind up, without 

 the least inconvenience to the owner, any number of 

 the shells of the snails which are its chief delicacy. 

 As many as twenty little snail-shells have been taken 

 from the crop of one Bearded Tit. 



We wonder now why good people should have been 

 so much alarmed as once they were at the doctrines of 

 ' development.' It is the teaching of the Parable of the 

 Talents extended from the spiritual to the physical 

 world powers neglected or abused withdrawn, others 

 well used increased. 



The shape and colour of the Bearded Tit are as 

 specially adapted as is its stomach to the peculiarities 

 of its surroundings. 



Visitors to the Broads in midsummer who may have 

 caught glimpses of the bird, showing itself for a minute 

 or two at a time, a conspicuous object against the green 

 of the young rushes, may find it difficult to realise that 

 the Bearded Tit is, when invisibility is of most import- 

 ance to it, protected by colour and form scarcely less 

 perfectly for all practical purposes than are leaf-insects, 



