Head bluish grey; between the bill and eye a tuft of pendent black feathers, prolonged into a pointed moustache; throat and neck greyish white; breast and belly white tinged with yellow and pink; upper parts light orange-brown; wings variegated with black, white and red; tail very long, orange-brown, the outer feathers variegated with black and white. _Female_: the moustache the same colour as the cheek; the grey on the head absent. Length, six inches and a half. * * * * * This bird, although by name a tit, and placed next to the titmice by many naturalists in their systems, differs widely from those birds in some points. The question of its true position among passerine birds has, indeed, been a subject of controversy for a long time past, and is not yet settled. Some writers would have it that it comes nearest to the shrikes; others, that it is most closely related to the buntings; and still others place it next to the waxwing. Leaving aside anatomical subjects, it may be said that the bearded tit is unlike all these different birds and the titmice in habits, language, colouring, and in its curious feather-ornaments--the erectile, pointed, black feathers that grow between the beak and eyes, and form the curious long moustache which gives the bird its name. The bearded tit, although at all times an extremely local species, on account of its being exclusively an inhabitant of reed-beds, was once fairly common in many parts of England; but owing to the draining of marshes and to the persecution of collectors, it has now become one of the rarest of British birds. At present it is confined to the district of the Broads in Norfolk, where it is, unhappily, becoming increasingly rare, and is threatened with extinction at no distant date.