T Ttfim ouse 



LETTER XL I. 



To the same. 



T 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 

 [feebleness] of birds seems not to be the only 

 reason why they shun the rigour of our 

 winters; 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 

 and villages, to which most of our winter birds crowd in dis- 

 tressful 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 their spring-heads, where they never 



