USEFUL TO MAN. 115 



anything like an insect is considered a bonne bouche by the trout ; 

 and, indeed, the deceit, if lightly cast by a nice hand on the ripple, 

 is sure to take fish, and good ones too, ' if,' as old Izaak hath it, 

 'they be there.' The bird may be followed up and down the 

 hedge-row till it will suffer itself to be taken by the hand. Then 

 borrow steal if you will two or three of the precious feathers, 

 but let the little warbler go to enjoy its liberty, and furnish Wren's 

 tails ' for another year. 



We scarcely think that sufficient attention has been 

 called to the services rendered by this diminutive songster 

 to man, in a way to which special allusion is made in the 

 following extract : 



As a devourer of pernicious insects, one of the most useful birds 

 is the House Wren. This little bird seems peculiarly fond of the 

 society of man, and it must be confessed that it is often protected 

 by his interested care. It has long been a custom, in many parts of 

 the country, to fix a small box at the end of a long pole, in gardens, 

 about houses, &c., as a place for it to build in. In these boxes they 

 build, and hatch their young. When the young are hatched the 

 parent bird feeds them with a variety of different insects, particu- 

 larly such as are injurious in gardens. An intelligent gentleman 

 was at the trouble to observe the number of times a pair of these 

 birds came from their box, and returned with insects for their young. 

 He found that they did this from forty to sixty times in an hour ; 

 and, in one particular hour, the birds carried food to their young 

 seventy-one times. In this business they were engaged the greater 

 part of the day ; say twelve hours. Taking the medium, therefore, 

 of fifty times in an hour, it appeared that a single pair of these birds 

 took from the cabbage, salad, beans, peas, and other vegetables in 

 the garden, at least six hundred insects in the course of one day. 

 This calculation proceeds upon the supposition, that the two birds 

 took only a single insect each time. But it is highly probable they 

 often took several at a time. 



Perhaps the reason why the song of this little bird has 

 been especially admired and commended, is that it may be 

 heard when all, or nearly all, other feathered songsters are 

 silent. Gilbert White observes that, ' Wrens sing all the 

 winter through, frost excepted ;' and Ely the adds, * in frosty 

 weather also, when the sun shines.' While Grahame 

 says, 



Beside the Eedbreast's note, one other strain, 

 One summer strain, in wintry days is heard. 

 Amid the leafless thorn the merry Wren, 

 When icicles hang dripping from the rock, 



