14 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



as though it were a mouse. It is very pretty to 

 see it peep and creep and disappear, and then 

 demurely appear again. Often it will be under- 

 ground for quite a little while — long enough to 

 make one wonder, sometimes, if anything has hap- 

 pened to it — but nothing ever has. As soon as 

 it has explored one labyrinth, it utters its little 

 chirruppy, chirpy, chattery note, and flits, a brown 

 little shadow, to another, into the first dark root- 

 cavern of which it, once more, disappears. House- 

 hunting, it looks like — for the coming spring 

 quarter, to take from Lady Day, it being February 

 now — but it is too early for the bird to be really 

 thinking of a nest, and no doubt the finding of 

 insects is its sole object. The golden-crested wrens 

 are more aerial in their search for food. They pass 

 from fir-top to fir-top, flitting swiftly about 

 amongst the tufts of needles, owing to which, and 

 their small size, it is difficult to follow their move- 

 ments accurately. The pine-needles seem very 

 attractive to them. I have often searched these 

 for insects, but never with much success, and I 

 think, myself, that they feed principally upon the 

 tiny buds which begin to appear upon them, very early 

 in the year. In winter they may often be seen about 

 the trunks of the trees, and I remember, once, jotting 

 down a query as to what they could get there on a 

 cold frosty morning in December, when a spider, 

 falling on the note-book, answered it in a quite 

 satisfactory manner. 



Many spiders hibernate under the rough outer bark 

 of the Scotch fir, often in a sort of webby cocoon, 

 which they spin for themselves ; numbers of small 



