SI It. J. II. GURNEY ON THE BEARDED TITMOUSE. 
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no doubt lie had. Several authors have alluded to the clear ringing 
of their call notes, which one admirer (Crespon) compares to the 
sounds produced by the cords of a French mandolin. 
I have been told by our reed-cutters that it is not unusual to 
see Bearded Tits searching the freshly severed “ rands ” of reed, as 
they float lightly on the water, probably for small mollusks and 
aquatic Hies. The late E. T. Booth, when collecting at Iliekling 
for his museum had Bearded Tits in cages, and fed the young ones 
on flies, and the skinned body of one shot at Ely (where they used 
to be found), and sent to Mr. Cordeaux, contained very small seeds 
and river sand in its muscular gizzard, but no Hies. Since 1743, 
when the Countess of Albemarle brought a cage full % from 
Copenhagen (Edwards), it has been popular with bird-fanciers. It 
is a bird in every way to be recommended for the cage, and Dutch 
ones can be bought, without infringing on our native stock. 
Mr. Young, who has written one of the best accounts of the 
habits of this charming species in captivity (Trans. Norfolk and 
Norwich Nat. Soc. vol. iii. p. 519), and who kept one nearly live 
years, says they have a way of scratching in the sand like a fowl, 
and that there is no spring moult. Other particulars are given in 
J. G. Keulemans’ ‘Cage Birds,’ and directions for bringing up the 
young on bread moistened with milk, and mealworms cut into 
pieces, ants’ eggs and gentles. Also a woodcut of the leg as com- 
pared with the leg of a Great Titmouse and a Ked-backed Shrike, 
the latter of which it more nearly resembles in the curve of the hind 
claw, indeed it was called by Edwards “ The least Butcher Bird.” 
The flight of the Bearded Tit may be described as somewhat 
laboured, as it Hits rather than flies with its heavy half-spread tail, 
surely incommoding rapid progress, yet this frail little bird is 
believed capable of crossing the German Ocean. It is in family 
parties that it is generally to be seen, and I only once remember 
a solitary one on Norfolk Broads. 
On looking over my entries of dates of nesting I quite agree 
with Mr. Stevenson, that the Bearded Tit is a very early breeder. 
4)n one occasion there were young ones to be seen as big as their 
parents in the middle of June, and on the same day an incomplete 
clutch of fresh eggs, which would seem to indicate that they some- 
times breed three times in a season, the first clutch of eggs being 
hatched in April. Stevenson and Booth thought that they generally 
