Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/396

362 noise they drop down among the reeds, but soon resume their station again, climbing up the reed-stems with the greatest facility."

Though now slightly recovering its numbers, the Bearded Tit has become very scarce in Norfolk, and almost extinct in Suffolk. Self-interested marshmen and egg-collectors would like strangers to believe that this scarcity is owing to hard winters; but their own cupidity is one cause of the decrease, for the truth is, that Bearded Tits are not nearly so delicate as their frail appearance would seem to imply; indeed, Mr. E.T. Booth used to call them remarkably hardy, and in his 'Catalogue' says that they seem able to contend against severe weather with greater success than many much larger and apparently stronger birds. This I quite believe to be the case, for they are not tender in confinement.

Having asked the Rev. M.C. Bird, who lives among the broads, to keep notes as to their presence or absence, he being constantly on the spot, I received the following memoranda last spring:—

March 14th, 1899.—Four pairs seen.

April 14th.—A nest at Potter Heigham.

April 17th.—Three nests, with four, four, and five eggs respectively; two more nests, and a sixth taken.

April 25th.—Three nests found.

April 28th.—Additional nest with young a few days old.

May 1st.—Another nest.

May 6th.—The nest found on the 1st has eight eggs; another nest found to-day.

May 19th.—A nest with young flown.

With Mr. Bird's assistance I have compiled an estimate of the number of nests hatched off in 1898 on every broad in Norfolk where there is reason to think that there are any. This only gives a total for them all of thirty-three nests, as tabulated in the Trans. Norf. and Nor. Nat. Soc. (vi. p. 430), but the number may be slightly more. It is unnecessary to recapitulate the list, which has only a local interest, but we may assess the number of adult Bearded Tits in April, 1899, on Norfolk Broads, as certainly one hundred; but there were not more than seven nests on any one broad, and it will be a diminishing quantity unless the arm of