CaP* } 
THE BEARDED TITMOUSE. 
By J. H. Gurney, Jon., F.Z.S. 
Tue Bearded Titmouse, Panurus biarmicus (Linn.), was first 
discovered by Sir Thomas Browne, the learned physician of 
Norwich, in Charles the Second’s time, but not until after he had 
written his ‘ Account of Norfolk Birds,’ in which no mention of 
it occurs. Subsequently, in a communication to John Ray, he 
described it from an example which had been shot in an osier- 
car, probably on the Norwich river. Norfolk is now its last 
home, including the north of Suffolk, and these are the only two 
counties in which it still breeds, the Broad district, where alone 
it may be found, extending over an area of little more than 
twenty miles. 
So scarce, however, has this bird become that I am sorry to 
say I have been on Norfolk Broads scores of times without 
seeing one, and this is the experience also of others besides 
myself. The marshmen would have strangers believe that this 
scarcity is owing to hard winters, but their own cupidity is really 
the chief cause of the decrease, for they know full well the 
market value of the eggs. The truth is, as Messrs. Lubbock, 
Stevenson, and Booth have pointed out, the Bearded Tit is a 
much hardier bird than its frail appearance would lead one to 
expect. 
At Hickling Broad there is not one where ten years ago there 
used to be twenty. Joshua Nudd, a weighty authority in such 
matters, estimated the number this year (1889) on Hickling 
Broad and Heigham Sounds at two pairs, and four pairs on 
Horsey Broad adjoining, a sad contrast to the time when they 
were so plentiful that in one morning’s search he could find forty 
fresh eggs; but then Nudd could not resist taking them, thus 
practically killing the geese which laid these golden eggs. For 
years there has been a trade in them, the recognised price being 
fourpence apiece, and this is enough to tempt a Norfolk marsh- 
man to leave his legitimate occupation of mowing sedge at 10s. 
a week and take to “‘ egging.” 
There is a partial remedy for this state of things, though 
there are some objections to it: if the proprietors of the Broads 
would allow the reeds to grow instead of cutting them, we should 
