174 THE LAST ENGLISH HOME 



the killing wind. There, while we looked for them in 

 vain, busy parents may have been working hard from 

 morning till night to cater for the wants of hungry 

 families safely hidden in daily thickening growths of 

 bog-flowers and grasses, and another year the deserted 

 reed-beds we visited may be re-peopled. 



But as we drove home the conviction forced itself 

 more and more strongly upon us, that from one at least 

 of its most favoured haunts the Bearded Tit had dis- 

 appeared, and that it was not improbable that very 

 soon perhaps before the year was over naturalists 

 might be telling the sad story of the extinction of one 

 more English bird. Happily our gloomy forebodings 

 have not yet been fulfilled, and the Bearded Tit is again 

 one of the chief ornaments of the reed-beds of the 

 Norfolk Broads. 



