THE FAERY YEAR 



Wrens here, there, everywhere. Wrens scat- 

 tered singly along every hedgerow. Wrens on the 

 gorse commons, in the coppices, gardens, shrubberies 

 wrens by the river sides. The English country- 

 side is full of them, and no livelier, hardier mite of 

 a bird flies. The wren is master of the neatest, 

 completest devices for winning its microscopic living, 

 which keep it plump and cosy through most starv- 

 ing times of winter. It will run up and round the 

 lower portions of the trunks of mossy or lichened 

 trees with the ease of the tree-creeper. In sunshine 

 of February and March, when the winter gnats are 

 hatching out into the winged state, the hedgerow- 

 hunting wren will take these in the air, making 

 swift and sure little darts of a foot or two from the 

 ground. But ordinarily it is a hedge creeper, 

 working in and out restlessly, and uttering, when 

 approached too nearly, its sharp little protesting 

 note, like the winding up of some miniature 

 machinery. 



One is struck, whilst watching wrens, by the 

 way in which their plumage to our eyes 

 harmonizes to a shade with the brown colouring of 

 the winter hedge bottom. No other hedge-bird I 

 know matches its winter environment quite so well 

 as the wren not hedge-sparrow, nor song-thrush. 

 What, however, is the foe against whom the wren is 

 so protectively coloured ? Is it only some foe of 

 time long past ? To-day, in England, the sparrow 

 hawk or kestrel seems the most likely foe ; and, 

 considering the tangled spots which the wren hardly 



