368 GOLDEN-EYE 



nostril is covered by a single bristly feather directed forwards. 

 The Golden-crested Wren is the smallest of British birds, its whole 

 length being about 3 inches and a half, and its wing measui'ing 

 only 2 inches from the carpal joint. Generally of an olive-green 

 colour, the top of its head is bright yellow, deepening into orange, 

 and bounded on either side by a black line, while the wing- coverts 

 are dull black, and some of them tipped with white, forming a 

 somewhat conspicuous bar. The cock has a pleasant but weak 

 song. The nest is a beautiful object, thickly felted of the softest 

 moss, wool, and spiders' webs, lined with feathers, and usually built 

 under and near the end of the branch of a yew, fir, or cedar, sup- 

 ported by the interweaving of two or three laterally diverging and 

 pendent twigs, and sheltered by the rest. The eggs are from six 

 to ten in number, of a dull white sometimes finely freckled with 

 reddish-brown. The species is particularly social, living for the 

 most of the year in family-parties, and often joining bands of any 

 species of Titmouse in a common search for food. Though to be 

 met with in Britain at all seasons, the bird in autumn visits the 

 east coast in enormous flocks, apparently emigrants from Scandi- 

 navia, while hundreds perish in crossing the North Sea, where they 

 are well known to the fishermen as " Woodcock's Pilots," from 

 their generally preceding by a few days the advent of those regular 

 immigrants. A second and more local European species is the 

 Fire-crested Wren, E. ignicajnllus, easily recognizable by the 

 black streak on each side of the head, before and behind the eye, 

 and conspicuous white streak above it, as well as by the deeper 

 colour of its crown. A third and fourth species, E. maderensis and 

 E. teneriffse, inhabit Madeira and the Canary Islands, being peculiar 

 to each gi-oup respectively ; and examples from the Himalayas and 

 Japan have been difterentiated as E. Mmalayensis and E. japonims. 

 North America has two well-known species, E. satrapa, very like 

 the European E. ignicapillus, and the Ruby-crowned Wren, E. calen- 

 dula, which is remarkable for a loud song that has been compared 

 to that of a Canary-bird or a Sky-lark, and for ha^dng the character- 

 istic nasal feather in a rudimentary or aborted condition.^ 



GOLDEN-EYE, a name indiscriminately given in many parts 

 of Britain to two very distinct species of DuCKS, from the rich 

 yellow colour of their irides. The commonest of them — the Anas 

 fidigtda of Linnaeus and Fuligula cristata of most modern ornitholo- 



1 Under the name oi H. modeslus, or " Dalmatian Rpgiilus" of some English 

 authors, two very distinct species are now known to have been confounded, both 

 belonging really to the group of WiLLOW-"\VnENS, and having nothing to do 

 with Begulus. One, which has occurred in Britain, is the Motacilla superciliosa 

 of old or Phylloscopus su'perciUosus of modern authors, and is a native of northern 

 Asia, visiting Europe nearly every year, and the other, also of Asiatic origin, is 

 the Motacilla or Fhylloscojjus proregulus. 



