of the bird in its haunts—which are in part drawn from an article in the Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc. Tr. (vi. p. 429)—are compiled from different sources.
It was discovered by the ever-enquiring author of the earliest treatise on Norfolk Birds, Sir Thomas Browne, who communicated his discovery to John Ray, who published the first notice and description in 1674, in a scarce little book of which Canon Tristram is fortunate in having a copy. All subsequent authors appear to have been ignorant of this publication of Ray's, and ignored it, and no continental naturalist describes the bird before Linnæus.
Certainly it seems as if Sir Thomas Browne could not have been cognisant of the Bearded Titmouse when he drew up his memorable List of Birds (about the year 1663), yet the bird must have been an inhabitant close to Norwich.
The picture of the Bearded Tit which Browne sent to Ray—probably delineated by the same hand which portrayed him the Manx Shearwater,[1]—a literary curiosity, if it existed still—is tersely described in Ray's 'A Collection of English Words not generally used,' as "A little Bird of a tawney colour on the back, and a blew head, yellow bill, black legs, shot in an Osiar [doubtless on the Yare] yard, called by Sr Tho. for distinction sake silerella," A concise description of an adult male.
In the 'Synopsis methodica avium,' by Ray, but published eight years after his death, the Bearded Tit finds a place (page 81) among birds doubtfully identified by Aldrovandus and others, as: "II. Salicaria, Gesn. An Silerella D. Brown? Avicula est minima; colore partim fusco, ut parte prona"; &c.
Distribution.
At the present day the Bearded Titmouse is limited to the Norfolk Broad[2] district, an area twenty-five by thirteen miles, of which part is marsh. Here it still breeds annually, and is found in little flocks throughout the autumn and winter, but whether
- ↑ Browne also sent Ray several other pictures of birds ('Willoughby's Ornithology,' preface), but from a subsequent complaint it appears they were not returned (Wilkins' edition of Sir T. Browne's Works, i. p. 337).
- ↑ "Broad" is a local name for a shallow lake often surrounded with reeds, formed by the expansion of a river in former times; a "broad-water" it would be called in some counties, but in Norfolk and Suffolk it is a broad."
