INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 399 



of lanes or rivers, the wren may be seen creeping out and into 

 every cavity, like a mouse. Insects of a particular kind are 

 necessary as food for the wren 5 which is the reason why they 

 cannot be kept in cages like other birds ; for though in confinement 

 they pick a little boiled minced meat, or egg, they do not live long. 



Considering then the countless numbers of insects that must be 

 destroyed in a single season, or during the lives of a single pair of 

 wrens, their great use in preventing an injurious increase of the 

 insect tribes may easily be conceived, and a still greater share of 

 regard ought to be shown to those little benefactors of the human 

 race. 



The next insect-eater to be noticed is the smallest British bird, 

 pamely, the golden-crested wren, (Sylvia regulus.J This little 

 warbler, with his " fairy song," subsists on the same kind of food 

 as the preceding, but is much more a forester, not frequenting 

 domestic offices or other buildings like the common wren. They 

 are chiefly met with in thick woods, especially where pine and fir 

 trees abound. These, from their thick impervious foliage, afford 

 shelter not only to these birds but also to numerous insects on 

 which they feed. They build their nests (which are but very little 

 larger than an egg-cup) near the points of the drooping branches 

 of the fir trees, at a considerable height from the ground. Here 

 ^hey rear their broods in comparative safety from oolists and beasts 

 of prey : but magpies and crows have no mercy for the callow 

 young, if once they find them. They sometimes venture into open 

 gardens to visit the gooseberry and currant trees j and are also 

 seen in thick hedges : but they are not so useful in the orchard as 

 the other warblers. These birds are readily recognised not only 

 by their diminutive size, but by the bright burnished gold stripe 

 along the crown of the head : hence the specific name. 



Among insect-eaters the redbreast, (Sylvia Ruhecola,) must no)t 

 be forgotten. This is the most familiar, or rather the most impu- 

 dent, of the feathered race. Small earth-worms, caterpillars, 

 carrion, and various flies, are his common food -, but the redbreast 

 is not nice in his diet, partaking of whatever may be offered, 

 whether vegetable or animal j and so voracious that he will 

 even feast on the dead carcass of the antagonist he has killed 

 in battle ! The redbreast is the most pugnacious of his tribe j 

 constantly quarrelling not only with his own species, but every 

 other bird which intrudes on what the robin presumes to think his 

 pwn domain. In the winter they repair to farm houses and 

 gardens -, retiring to woods and unfrequented places during their 

 breeding season. 



The wagtails, of which there are three species, viz. Motacilla 

 €Llba, fiava and cinereus, may be ranked among insect-eaters j but, 

 as they feed chiefly on gnats and the larva of other water insects, 

 they are not so ostensibly useful in fields and gardens as some of 

 those already mentioned. To the farmer, indeed, they may be 

 of some service in thinning the race of Tipulce whose larva live on 

 the roots of grasses ; but such depredation is never visible. Of 



