SKETCH BY WATERTON. 117 



The Wren is at once distinguished in appearance from our 

 smaller British songsters by the erect position of its tail. Its 

 restlessness, too, renders it particularly conspicuous; for, when we 

 look at it, we find it so perpetually on the move, that I cannot 

 recollect to have observed this diminutive rover at rest on a branch 

 for three minutes in continuation. Its habits are solitary, to the 

 fullest extent of the word; and it seems to bear hard weather 

 better than either the Hedge Sparrow or the Eobin ; for whilst these 

 two birds approach our habitations in quest of food and shelter, 

 with their plumage raised as indicative of cold, the Wren may be 

 seen in ordinary pursuit, amid icicles which hang from the bare 

 roots of shrubs and trees, on the banks of the neighbouring rivulets, 

 and amongst these roots it is particularly fond of building its oval 

 nest. The ancients called the Wren Troglodytes; but it is now 

 honoured with the high-sounding name of Anorthura ; alleging for 

 a reason, that the ancients were quite mistaken in their supposition 

 that this bird was an inhabitant of caves, as it is never to be seen 

 within them. Methinks that the ancients were quite right and 

 that our modern masters in ornithology are quite wrong. If we 

 only for a moment reflect that the nest of the Wren is spherical, 

 and is of itself, as it were, a little cave, we can easily imagine 

 that the ancients, on seeing the bird going in and out of this 

 artificial cave, considered the word Troglodytes an appropriate 

 appellation. 



This little bird, we may add in continuation, which 



When icicles hang dripping from the rock, 

 Pipes her perennial lay, 



begins to build very early in the spring, fixing its nest 

 sometimes under the thatch of a building, sometimes on 

 the side of a moss- covered tree, or under an impending 

 bank ; ' the materials of the nest,' as Montagu remarks, 

 ' being generally adapted to the place ; if built against the 

 side of a hay-rick, it is composed of twigs ; if against the 

 side of a tree covered with white moss, it is made of that 

 material ; and with green moss, if against a tree covered 

 with the same. Thus instinct directs it for security. 7 

 Jesse, in his i Gleanings,' mentions that i he has a Wren's 

 nest in his possession built amongst some litter thrown into 

 a yard. It so nearly resembled the surrounding objects, 

 that it was only discovered by the bird's flying out of it.' 

 Some of the straws of which this nest was composed were 

 so thick, that it was a wonder how so small a bird could 



