322 THE GOLD-CRESTED REGULUS. 



The Gold-Crested Regulus. 



(Motacilla Regulus.) Linn. (Sylvia Regulus.) Lath. 



" Thou fairy bird, how I love to trace 

 The rapid flight of thy tiny race ! 

 For the wild bee does not wave its wing 

 More lightly than thine, thou fairy thing ! " 



Although the smallest of our native birds, it is also one of the 

 hardiest, and found in every spruce-fir wood from the south of 

 England to the north of Scotland, and, like the willow wren, as 

 far north as the Arctic Circle. This diminutive bird, only 3| 

 inches long, finds its way over the North Sea, from Norway to 

 Britain, in autumn in flocks, and retires again in spring — 

 although many perish in the migration.. On the night of the 

 total eclipse of the moon, 4th October 1884, a dozen were 

 caught at the lantern of the Isle of May Lighthouse. Their 

 migration began on the 28th of August, and continued till the 

 16th of November that year. But although our smallest bird it is 

 wonderful how much insect life it destroys — even in captivity, 

 when its vitality is weakest, it has been tested, and found to have 

 eaten 1,000 ants' pupae daily — these weigh two drams, so each 

 bird consumes yearly about 65 ounces of insect life. When at 

 liberty it does not get so many ants' pupa?, but it searches for 

 the eggs of butterflies, plant-lice, small caterpillars, and such 

 like. As it takes 20,000 butterfly eggs or 20,000 plant-lice to 

 make half-an-ounce, every golden wren exterminates yearly over 

 three and a-half millions of these destructive pests. As there 

 are no plant-lice nor caterpillars from autumn till spring, it picks 

 out the chrysalises of insects from trees and bushes in its untiring 

 search after insect life. It is known that a pair carry food to 

 their young 36 times an hour, or 576 times a day of 16 hours; 

 and say they have two broods of eight or eleven each, the 

 quantity of insect pests a forest is cleared of each year must be 

 enormous. Let those who have had the leaves or flowers in 

 their gardens attacked and stripped by insects pause before 

 killing any of their feathered friends which feed on insects, 

 caterpillars, and grubs, and think upon what he himself would 

 be without water, soap, and the comb. The nest is usually 

 suspended under a spruce-fir branch by spiders' webs and wool, 



