THE BEARDED TIT. 421 



grow in places of which we are suspicious. In winter again, 

 even in the floods, there is no passage for a boat ; and as the 

 frost in England is seldom so severe as to consolidate the 

 surface of those places, they are less inviting then than even 

 in summer. 



The fact that, till within these few years, the bearded tit 

 was not admitted into the list of resident British birds, or 

 even into that of regular migrants, while it has been found 

 that it is not only resident, but far from rare in those parts 

 of the country which are favourable to its habits, points out 

 pretty strongly the necessity of scrutinizing those places 

 which have been neglected, and also of not coming to any 

 hasty conclusion, that a bird which is rarely seen, is only a 

 straggler and need not be sought for. If, indeed, the habits 

 of the bird in any other country be well known, so that from 

 its haunts, its food, or any other circumstance, it can be clearly 

 inferred that no part of Britain is well adapted for it, and 

 that the adaptation is worse at the seasons at which it has not 

 been found, than in those in which it has ; or if the bird is a 

 migrant, and belongs to a migration which is distant in longi- 

 tude, and ranges over a great extent in latitude, then we may 

 safely conclude that it is only a straggler. But if those cir- 

 cumstances do not apply ; if the bird inhabits nearly the same 

 climate as that of Britain, does not change far in latitude 

 seasonally, is a bird of rare occurrence, concealed habits, and 

 obscure history, in other places, though we ought not to decide 

 without proof that it is a British bird, we are as little entitled 

 to decide the other way without proof. In such cases, it is 

 always of use to examine ; and if the young be found early in 

 the autumn, and before the supply of food shall have failed, 

 or the cold weather set in, in places farther to the north, that 

 is an additional inducement to examination. The labourers 

 in the field of British ornithology are now many, and the 

 harvest which has been reaped since fresh ardour and im- 



