188 
PARID.E. 
situations of a peculiar character. It is found only in wet 
and marshy localities, abounding in reeds, and affording a 
plentiful supply of its peculiar food, namely, small mollusca. 
These localities are chiefly the banks of fresh-water rivers ; 
but they also abound in some situations where salt water 
flows in at every tide, namely, at Erith on the Thames, &c. ; 
and Montagu mentions having killed a specimen near Win- 
chelsea in Sussex, among the reeds that grow close to the sea¬ 
shore. By this naturalist the earliest correct accounts of its 
habits in this country were given ; to which we shall again 
refer. The localities, mentioned by many different authors, 
are reedy tracts near Cowbit in Lancashire, and similar situa¬ 
tions in Gloucestershire ; several of the fresh-water broads in 
Norfolk ; large tracts of reeds along the Suffolk coast; the 
skirts of Whittlesea near Huntingdonshire, and the fenny 
districts of Lincolnshire ; it is also found near Godaiming in 
Surrey, and is said to inhabit the banks of the Thames from 
London as far as Oxford. In this latter quarter, as well as 
elsewhere, this species appears very locally distributed, as we 
know parts of the Thames, many miles in length, where it does 
not occur. 
The Bearded Titmouse apparently inhabits the same situa¬ 
tions summer and winter ; and, notwithstanding its delicate 
appearance, seems to brave the cold of the chilly and dreary 
spots it frequents with impunity; concealing itself, however, 
as well as circumstances will permit. In the Magazine of 
Natural History some particulars are recorded, which, as 
they embrace many points of the habits of these little birds, 
we copy without farther apology. “ I was told,” says a 
correspondent of that work, “ that some of these birds had 
been seen in a large piece of reeds below Barking Creek ; 
and being desirous of observing them in their haunts, I went, 
accompanied by a person and a dog, to the above named 
place, on a cold and windy morning; the reed-cutters hav- 
