PARUS BIARMICUS. (linn.) 

 Bearded Titmouse. 



The Bearded Titmouse is so sparingly dispersed through 

 this country, being confined chiefly to a few of our fenny 

 counties, Norfolk, Suffolk, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, 

 and Lincolnshire, that very little has been known of its ha- 

 bits and nidification till of late years. Not having myself 

 had an opportunity of seeing it in its native haunts, I have 

 copied the following account by J. D. Hoy, Esq., from the 

 pages of Loudon's Magazine, Vol. III., Page 328 : — " The 

 borders of the large pieces of fresh water in Norfolk, called 

 Broads, particularly Hickling and Horsey Broads, are the fa- 

 vourite places of resort of this bird ; indeed it is to be met 

 with in that neighbourhood wherever there are reeds in any 

 quantity with fenny land adjoining. I have found them nu- 

 merous during the breeding season on the skirts of Whittle- 

 sea ; and they are not uncommon in the Fenny district of 

 Lincolnshire. It begins building in the end of April. The 

 nest is composed on the outside with the dead leaves of the 

 reed and sedge, intermixed with a few pieces of grass, and in- 

 variably lined with the top of the reed, somewhat in the man- 

 ner of the nest of the Reed Wren (S. Arundinacea), but not 

 so compact in the interior ; it is generally placed in a tuft 

 of coarse grass or rushes near the ground, on the margin of 

 the dikes in the fen ; also sometimes fixed among the reeds 

 that are broken down, but never susj)ended between the 

 stems ; the eggs vary in number from four to six, rarely se- 

 ven. — Fig. 4. 



