BEARDED TITMOUSE. 
189 
ing commenced their operations, I was fearful of deferring 
my visit, lest my game might be driven away. Arrived 
on our ground, we traversed it some time without suc¬ 
cess, and were about to leave it, when our attention was 
roused by the alarm cry of the bird. Looking up, we saw 
eight or ten of these beautiful creatures on the wing, just 
topping the reeds over our heads, uttering, in full chorus, 
their forcibly musical note, which resembles the monosyllable 
ping ! pronounced at first slow and single, then two or three 
times in a more hurried manner, uttered in a clear and ringing, 
though soft tone, which well corresponds with the beauty 
and delicacy of the bird. Their flights were short and low, 
only sufficient to clear the reeds, on the seedy tops of which 
they alight to feed, hanging, like most of their tribe, with the 
head and back downwards. After some time, we were fortu¬ 
nate enough to shoot one, a male, in fine plumage. I held it 
in my hand when scarcely dead. Nothing could exceed the 
beauty of the eye ; the bright orange of the iris, surrounded 
by the deep glossy black of the moustaches and streak above, 
receives additional brilliancy from the contrast, and struck me 
as a masterpiece of colour and neatness.” 
The principal food of the Bearded Titmouse consists, as 
we are informed by another correspondent of the Magazine of 
Natural History, of small shell snails, Succinea amphibia^ 
&c., with which their crops have been found filled. These 
appear to pass into the stomach in a perfect state, where 
they undergo the process of decomposition, which is accom¬ 
plished by the muscular action of the stomach, aided by the 
trituration of numerous angular portions of quartz, by which 
the minute division of the shells is effected. In addition to 
this, we are informed by Mr. Yarrell, that “ the sides of the 
stomach are muscular, and much thickened, forming a gizzard, 
which the true Titmice do not possess.” They are supposed 
also to feed upon many other insects that abound in the aquatic 
