THE CRESTED TIT. 211 



The late Mr. Robson included the Crested Tit in the list of 

 Cumberland birds (Zool. 1854, p. 4167), as having occurred at 

 Gosforth; the statement was challenged at the time (p. 4366), 

 and as Messrs. Macpherson and Duckworth pass it over in their 

 1 Birds of Cumberland,' we may perhaps dismiss it as insufficiently 

 authenticated. 



There is no evidence that it has been taken in any other 

 northern county until we come to Derbyshire, where one was 

 seen by Mr. C. Dixon, as stated in * Our Rarer Birds' (p. 71), in 

 a plantation at Meersbrook, as he informs me, near to Sheffield, 

 and in fact on the Yorkshire side of the boundary. 



In 'The Zoologist' for 1887 (p. 250) it is stated that a 

 Crested Tit, or Tits, — for the writer puts it in the plural, — was 

 seen by the late Dr. Leith Adams, at Biddlesden, in Buckingham- 

 shire, and another by Mr. Morgan at the same place in November, 

 1886. The latter observer may have been in error, but Dr. Leith 

 Adams was a good naturalist, and not very likely to be mistaken, 

 and the communication comes through the hands of Lord Lilford. 



Mr. Harting makes out a good case for Middlesex (' Birds 

 of Middlesex,' p. 56), and further adds that one was shot by 

 Mr. Engleheart at Blackheath, in Kent (I. c). Dismissing Nor- 

 folk, where one is supposed to have been seen (Trans. Norwich 

 Nat. iv. p. 274), and, turning to Suffolk, we find one seen at close 

 quarters by Dr. N. F. Hele, about which he tells us " there could 

 not possibly have been any mistake" (' Notes about Aldeburgh,' 

 p. 82) ; another shot at Melton about 1873, afterwards examined 

 by the Rev. Dr. Babington (' Birds of Suffolk,' p. 63), and another 

 about 1840, near Bury (I. c, p. 251), taken by Mr. Cambridge, 

 preserved by Mr. Bilson. I am not satisfied about this last, but 

 consider the occurrence of the other two established. 



Mr. H. L. Meyer, in his 4 British Birds' (vol. ii. p. 180), states 

 that, in the autumn of 1839, he thought he saw a Crested Tit at 

 Claremont, in Surrey, but expresses some doubt, not being aware 

 that it had been ever met with in England at that time. 



In March, 1874, one allowed Baron Hugel to approach it so 

 closely in a Devonshire lane, that he nearly touched it with his 

 walking-stick (Zool. 1874, p. 4065). 



Mr. R. Laishley, in his ' British Birds' Eggs,' says (p. 68) he 

 was shown a Crested Tit which was killed at Yarmouth in the 

 Isle of Wight, perhaps the bird alluded to by the Rev. C. A. Bury 



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