84 The Last Home 



crown of feathers in memory of the day when their 

 ancestors saw King Solomon almost fainting under a 

 sudden burst of noonday sunshine, and sheltered his 

 royal head with a parasol of overlapping wings. 



It may be as a mark of approval of the manliness 

 with which he faces winter on the Broad, when Snipe 

 and other birds have been driven off by the cold, that 

 the Bearded Tit now wears the long silky black 

 moustache his own peculiar adornment which 

 hangs from each side of the beak. 



As in the nobler species, the moustache is noticed 

 only in the males. There is a prolongation of the 

 cheek feathers of the female also, but not the same 

 contrast of colours. 



For all ordinary winters the Bearded Tit is well 

 provided. But, unhappily, last winter the longest on 

 record since the days of Lorna Doone was not an 

 ordinary one. 



Fifty-nine days of consecutive, almost sunless, frost 

 were recorded in London, and in parts of the Broads 

 the weather was even more severe. The snails for 

 weeks and months must have been glued fast to the 

 ground or rush-stalks tantalisingly in sight for much 

 of the time, as there was no great quantity of snow, 

 but as much out of reach of a small beak as flies in 

 amber. The birds when most in need of a warming 

 meat-diet were driven to depend almost entirely on 

 such dry ship-biscuits as the seeds of reeds, without 

 even water, excepting here and there in the running 

 streams, to wash it down, and have suffered terribly 

 in consequence. 



It was on one of the bright mornings towards the 

 end of April last, when, in spite of a wind still nailed 

 in the east, a warm sun and such spring sounds as 

 the call of the Nuthatch, a pair of whom had from 



