It is a very pretty bird in its buff and fawn coloured dress; very elegant in form, its singular black moustache and long, graduated tail enhancing the beauty of its appearance; and exceedingly graceful in its motions. It lives in the beds of reeds growing in the water; and the slim, graceful, clinging bird, and the tall, slender stems, with their pale, pointed leaves and feathery flowers, seem adapted each to the other. In seeking its food it clings to the reeds, much as the blue tit does to the pendent twigs of the birch. Its food consists of small insects and their larvæ, small molluscs, and the seeds of the reeds. In autumn and winter it is gregarious, three or four, or more, families uniting in a flock, and roaming from reed-bed to reed-bed and from broad to broad. When disturbed, or alarmed at the appearance of a hawk, they drop down into concealment among the reeds, but in a short time rise to the surface again, climbing parrot-like up the slender stems. There are few birds without a brilliant colouring that have so attractive an appearance as the bearded tit, especially when seen flying just above the top of the reeds, or when perched on a slender stem near its top, and swayed to and fro by the wind. Their alarm-note is harsh, but they have a variety of calling and singing notes, which are somewhat metallic in sound and very musical. A writer in Loudon’s ‘Magazine of Natural History’ describes the bearded tits in flight as ‘uttering in full chorus their sweetly musical notes; it may be compared to the music of very small cymbals, is clear and ringing, though soft, and corresponds well with the delicacy and beauty of the form and colour of the bird.’ The nest is made at the end of March or early in April, and is placed on the ground, under a bush, or among the grass and herbage near the water. It is composed of leaves of reeds, bents, and grass-blades, and lined with the fine fibres of the reed-tops. The eggs are four to six in number, and sometimes eight; they are white, with a few minute specks, blotches, and lines of dark reddish brown. Long-tailed Titmouse. Acredula rosea. Head, neck, throat, breast, and a portion of the outer tail-feathers white; back, wings, and six middle feathers of the tail black; a black streak above the eye; sides of the back and scapulars tinged with rosy red; under parts reddish white. Tail very long; beak very short. Length, five inches and three-quarters. * * * * *