OF SELBORNE. 106 



freeze ; and, by wading, pick out the aurelias of the genus 

 of ^Phryganece, &c. 



Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard wea- 

 ther, where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings : and 

 in mild weather they procure worms, which are stirring every 

 month in the year, as any one m&y see that will only be at the 

 trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on any mild winter's 

 night. Red-breasts and wrens in the winter haunt out-houses, 

 stables, and barns, where they find spiders and flies that have 

 laid themselves up during the cold season. But the grand 

 support of the soft-billed birds in winter is that infinite profu- 

 sion of aurelice of the lepidoptera ordo, which is fastened to 

 the twigs of trees and their trunks ; to the pales and walls of 

 gardens and buildings ; and is found in every cranny and 

 cleft of rock or rubbish, and even in the ground itself. 



Every species of titmouse winters with us ; they have what 

 I call a kind of intermediate bill between the hard and the 

 soft, between the Linncean genera of fringilla and motacilla. 

 One species alone spends it's whole time in the woods and 

 fields, never retreating for succour in the severest seasons to 

 houses and neighbourhoods ; and that is the delicate long- 

 tailed titmouse, w r hich is almost as minute as the golden- 

 crowned wren: but the blue titmouse, or nun (parus cceruleus), 

 the cole-mouse (parus ater), the great black-headed titmouse 

 (fringillagc), and the marsh titmouse (parus palustris), all 

 resort, at times, to buildings ; and in hard weather particu- 

 larly. The great titmouse, driven by stress of weather, much 

 frequents houses, and, in deep snows, I have seen this bird, 

 while it hung with it's back downwards (to my no small de- 

 light and admiration), draw straws lengthwise from out the 

 eaves of thatched houses, in order to pull out the flies that 

 were concealed between them, and that in such numbers that 

 they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appear- 

 ance. 



The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, 

 and a general devourer. Besides insects, it is very fond of 

 flesh; for it frequently picks bones on dunghills: it is a vast 

 i See Derhams Physico-theology, p. 235. 



