PANURID., 99 
THE BEARDED TITMOUSE. 
Panurus BIARMICUS (Linnzus). 
The drainage of the reedy fens and meres has destroyed the 
former breeding-grounds of the Bearded Tit in Sussex, Kent, Essex, 
Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire; perhaps— 
aided by the greed of collectors—even in Suffolk. The places where 
the bird can now be observed in the nesting-season are mostly in the 
Broad-district of Norfolk, with, perhaps, one locality in Devonshire. 
As a visitor it has twice occurred in Cornwall; while it has been 
recorded in Dorset, and along the Thames valley to Gloucestershire ; 
as well as in Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire. It is a resident 
species in England, seldom wandering far from its usual haunts ; and 
if our indigenous birds should be exterminated, there is little hope 
of their place being supplied by migrants from the Continent. 
An exceptional wanderer to Heligoland, and rare in Holstein and 
Germany east of the Moselle, the Bearded Tit becomes compara- 
tively common in the great reed-beds of Holland ; visiting Belgium 
in autumn and Luxembourg in winter, to escape the severity of the 
weather. In France it is principally found in the valley and the 
delta of the Rhone, and in the marshes below Narbonne. In Spain 
I observed it in considerable numbers on the Albufera lake, near 
Valencia, where it is resident ; as it is also in the marshes of Italy 
and Sicily. It is found in suitable situations in Poland, Austro- 
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