BEARDED TITMOUSE 
61 
tectlon Act has come to its rescue in its last strong- 
hold, the Norfolk Broad country, and it is now 
increasing there in numbers again and even seems 
to be making efforts — probably doomed to failure 
— to colonise suitable localities in other parts of 
England. In the reed beds of the Broads it may 
be hoped that it will long survive. It is a very 
handsome bird, warm brown, in several shades, 
above, and greyish-white and grey beneath, with 
variegated markings on the wing ; besides its long 
tail it has the unmistakable feature of the patch 
of black feathers which descends from the eye in 
a point on either side, like the old-fashioned 
" Dundreary " whiskers. The hen is, quite 
rightly, not whiskered, and is slightly duller in 
her general markings. The cry of this bird is 
described as being quite unmistakable, and re- 
sembling the clear note of a silver banjo string. 
The nest is found almost all through the summer ; 
it is built in dry sedgy reeds and water-herbage, 
of similar dry sedges and grasses, and lined, as a 
rule, with the same grey reed-plume which is used 
by the Reed Warbler. Five or six eggs are 
generally laid ; they are blunt at each end, of a 
creamy white, curiously sprinkled, not very 
thickly, with short, fine, hair-like lines of reddish- 
brown. The " Reed Pheasant " (as the marsh- 
men call it from the length of its tail) is not a 
