BEARDED TITMOUSE. 513 



* Synopsis Avium ' edited in 1713, after his death, by Der- 

 ham, the bird is doubtfully referred (p. 81) to the Sedge- 

 Warbler, thus : " Salicaria Gesn. An Silerella D. Brown ? " 

 In 1738, or perhaps a few years earlier, Albin figured the 

 species (Nat. Hist. Br. B. i. p. 46, pi. 48) as " The Beard 

 Manica from Juteland, or bearded Titmouse ", but stated 

 that he had been informed by Sir Kobert Abdy that it was 

 found in the salt-marshes in Essex, and by others that it 

 likewise occurred in the fens of Lincolnshire. In 1745, 

 Edwards also figured both sexes (Nat. Hist. B. ii. pi. 55), 

 by the name of " The least Butcher-Bird", saying that the 

 then Lady Albemarle had, in 1743, " brought with her from 

 Copenhagen a large cage full of these birds"; but that he 

 had seen others, both cocks and hens, shot among the reeds in 

 marshes near London. The bird thus figured, Linnaeus, appa- 

 rently without having seen a specimen, named Parus biarmi- 

 cus*, and, in 1769, Scopoli described the species, calling it 

 Parus barbatus. In 1774, S. G. Gmelin, who had found it 

 on the Sea of Azov and the Caspian, described it as Parus 

 russicus (Reise durch Russland, ii. p. 164, pi. x.), while, as 

 already stated, Koch and Leach, in 1816, removed it from that 

 genus. Not however until 1833 did any naturalist doubt its 

 having been rightly associated with the Paridce; but in that 

 year Mr.Blyth, in the first ornithological paper which proceeded 

 from his subsequently prolific pen, challenged the common 

 belief and shewed (Field Nat. i. pp. 66-70), from his careful 

 observation of its habits in captivity and from its internal 

 structure, that it was no Titmouse, expressing also his belief 

 that it was more nearly allied to the Shrikes (Laniida) than 

 to any other group. This opinion being immediately ques- 

 tioned, he in some measure qualified it (torn. cit. p. 190), 



* This name was first used in 1758 (Syst. Nat. Ed. 10, i. p. 190), but why 

 it was applied is not clear. Biarmia means the country about Perm, and 

 there is no ground for thinking that the species had ever been said to be an 

 inhabitant of that part of Russia. It is barely possible that Linnaeus misun- 

 derstood the meaning of Albin's Beardmanica (a latinized form of "Beardman" 

 or some cognate word allied to its modern Dutch name Baardmannetje) and tried 

 to improve upon it. Temminck, many years later, certainly made the contrary 

 mistake, calling a South-African Falcon Falco liarmicus. 



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