86 Pictures of Bird Life 



Howard Saunders says : " An unusual spring rusli took 

 place in JNIarch and April. 1882. On sueli occasions bushes 

 in gardens on the coast are co\ered with birds as with 

 a swarm of bees : crowds H utter round the lanterns of light- 

 houses, and the rigging of fishing-smacks in the Xorth Sea 

 is thronged with weary tra\"ellers." 



The following graphic account from the pen of the late 

 Mr. Cordeaux appears in the Zooh^/sf for December, 1892: 

 " During this time the immigration was immense ; greatest 

 in number were Golden-crested AVrens. . . . Goldcrests 

 everywhere — in hedges and gardens, dead thorns and hedge- 

 trimmings, rubbish-heaps, beds of nettles and dead Umbelli- 

 fera?, the reeds in ditches, side of haystacks, and the thorn 

 fences of sheds and yards. Tlie sallow thorns were dcfisri// 

 Cf'oti'ded. JNlany found shelter in the long sea-grass, and 

 others, again, crouched on the bare, rain-swept sands between 

 the sea and the dunes. ^lany might have been taken with 

 a butterfly-net. On this day I saw a a cry handsome Fire- 

 crest. I was standinti' in shelter of a bio- fence, watching 

 the Goldcrests working inland up the hedge and flitting close 

 to my face, wlien one tried iirst to alight on the stick of 

 an umbrella which I held horizontally over my shoulder, and 

 then perched on a twig within a foot of my nose." 



The date of this great '' rush " of Goldcrests was 

 October 14th, 181)2. 



These exceedingly restless little birds are more readily 

 observed in the winter and early spring, when their minute 

 forms are more easilv seen in the leafless hedges. 



