THE BEARDED TITMOUSE. 359 



of the bird in its haunts — which are in part drawn from an article 

 in the Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc. Tr. (vi. p. 429) — are com- 

 piled from different sources. 



It was discovered by the ever-enquiring author of the earliest 

 treatise on Norfolk Birds, Sir Thomas Browne, who communicated 

 his discovery to John Ray, who published the first notice and 

 description in 1674, in a scarce little book of which Canon 

 Tristram is fortunate in having a copy. All subsequent authors 

 appear to have been ignorant of this publication of Ray's, and 

 ignored it, and no continental naturalist describes the bird 

 before Linnseus. 



Certainly it seems as if Sir Thomas Browne could not have 

 been cognisant of the Bearded Titmouse when he drew up his 

 memorable List of Birds (about the year 1663), yet the bird 

 must have been an inhabitant close to Norwich. 



The picture of the Bearded Tit which Browne sent to Ray — 

 probably delineated by the same hand which portrayed bim the 

 Manx Shearwater,* — a literary curiosity, if it existed still — is 

 tersely described in Ray's 'A Collection of English Words not 

 generally used,' as " A little Bird of a tawney colour on the 

 back, and a blew head, yellow bill, black legs, shot in an Osiar 

 [doubtless on the Yare] yard, called by Sr Tho. for distinction 

 sake silerella," A concise description of an adult male. 



In the ' Synopsis methodica avium,' by Ray, but published 

 eight years after his death, the Bearded Tit finds a place (page 81) 

 among birds doubtfully identified by Aldrovandus and others, as : 

 " II. Salicaria, Gesn. An Silerella D. Brown ? Avicula est 

 minima ; colore partim fusco, ut parte prona " ; &c. 



Distribution. 



At the present day the Bearded Titmouse is limited to the 



Norfolk Broadf district, an area twenty-five by thirteen miles, of 



which part is marsh. Here it still breeds annually, and is found 



in little flocks throughout the autumn and winter, but whether 



* Browne also sent Kay several other pictures of birds (' Willoughby's 

 Ornithology,' preface), but from a subsequent complaint it appears they were 

 not returned (Wilkins' edition of Sir T. Browne's Works, i. p. 337). 



f " Broad " is a local name for a shallow lake often surrounded with 

 reeds, formed by the expansion of a river in former times ; a " broad- water " 

 it would be called in some counties, but in Norfolk and Suffolk it is a broad." 



