on some experiences with British softhills.



223



allowed their liberty. But for the market value of them I would

rather have a good pair of golden-crested wrens than some kinds of

sunbirds. Their legs are simply filamentous and apparently not

strong enough to support a soap bubble. Their eyes are about as

big as a pin’s head and nearly as sharp as the point. Their tiny

little beaks are almost microscopic. Altogether they should certainly

be classed as dollshouse birds, seeming too small to be let loose in

this great big world of ours. By-the-bye so many quite good

aviculturists seemed to be unaware that the cock has a fiery-

coloured crest and the hen a pale yellow. One notability told me

I had a fire-crest! Don’t I wish I had! When I wrote and

complained (please note the irony of the word) Mr. Galloway, who

sold them to me, smiled. I wasn’t there to see it, but knowing

him as I do now, I can quite imagine it. After simply revelling in

my charming dainty little golden-crests for about three or four

weeks, one hapless morn I missed the cock and a few 7 days later the

hen. I cannot describe with what a heavy heart I went about my

work that day and kept on comparing the brawny hand of the

labourer with the tiny feet of my little friends. Alas ! I am still

without Regulus cristatus, but Mr. Gallow r ay has promised to do

his best for me this autumn.


My long-tailed tits gave almost as much joy, and I am glad

to say lived all through the summer until late in the autumn. My

experience is that they are wee sensible birds and always use a shelter

at night-time, and I think I was wrong in not taking them in in

November. Live food gets very scarce then and one notices they

are very active in nature, and in a short time will seem to scour a

wood from one end to the other as quick as one can keep up with

them. I have tw T o pairs of them now and I quite hope to keep them

all the winter this year. While talking of wintering birds I must say

that this year my experience with the smaller birds, although very

much more limited in numbers and species, more than bears out my

previous contentions. But I must not start on that subject or I

shall get into a kind of yolk of egg condition. I shall see evei’ything

through smeared and coloured glasses. Nightingales are not difficult

to keep up to a certain point. Once really meated off they are quite

easy to cater for, but I lost my hen before Christmas and sold the



