82 The Last Home 



in Algeria, the disadvantages were greater, and that, 

 on the whole, it was better to face the evils that they 

 knew than fly to others that they knew not of. 



The " developments " of the family ever since the 

 decision was made have been in a direction to fit 

 them for a quiet life among the reed-beds. Other 

 birds, smaller even than they, whose forefathers were 

 of a different opinion, have wings now so perfected 

 that, when soft animal food fails in England, they 

 think nothing of a flight of a few hundred miles to a 

 sunnier spot where fat insects may still be found. 



The Bearded Tit, with his little round wings and 

 the heavy canvas of his long tail, cannot do what 

 they can. But he can do what they cannot, and 

 make the most of what is to be got in the way of 

 food at home. 



In the swampy grounds from which his reed-beds 

 grow are quantities of very small snails. Some early 

 ancestor, feeling the pinch of hunger, ventured experi- 

 mentally to pick one up and ate it, and finding out 

 the sustaining qualities of the rich inside meat, 

 brought up 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 deli- 

 cately-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 him- 

 self 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 



