88 



The Last Home of the Bearded Tit. 



tempered 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 has 

 disappeared, and that it is not improbable that very 

 soon perhaps before this year is over naturalists 

 may be telling the sad story of the extinction of one 

 more English bird. 



