88 WHITE 



NOTES 



1 They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the Euonymus 

 europaus, or spindle-tree. G. W. 



2 Carp, tench, and eels retire into the mud, if it is soft enough, in the very 

 cold weather, but cannot be said to become torpid, like a tortoise does. Fish 

 can do for a long time with very little food, and the mud itself is full of eat- 

 able (in the fish view) things even in the winter. G. C. D. 



LETTER XLI 



IT is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those species 

 of soft-billed birds that continue with us the winter through, 

 subsist during the dead months. The imbecility of birds seems 

 not to be the only reason why they shun the rigor of our win- 

 ters ; for the robust wryneck (so much resembling the hardy 

 race of woodpeckers) migrates, while the feeble little golden- 

 crowned wren, that shadow of a bird, braves our severest frosts 

 without availing himself of houses or villages, to which most 

 of our winter birds crowd in distressful seasons, while this 

 keeps aloof in fields and woods ; but perhaps this may be the 

 reason why they may often perish, and why they are almost 

 as rare as any bird we know. 



I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds, which 

 winter with us, subsist chiefly on insects in their aurelia state. 

 All the species of wagtails in severe weather haunt shallow 

 streams near the spring heads, where they never freeze ; and, 

 by wading, pick out the aurelias of the genus of Phryganece, etc. 



Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather, 

 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 may see that will only be at the trouble 

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

 Redbreasts and wrens in the winter haunt out-houses, stables, 

 and barns, where they find spiders and flies that have laid them- 

 selves up during the cold season. But the grand support of 

 the soft-billed birds in winter is that infinite profusion of au- 

 relia of the Lepidoptera ordo, which is fastened to the twigs of 

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



