48 THE WARBLERS 



THE GOLDEN-CHESTED WREN 

 [E. L. TURNER] 



The goldcrest is the smallest of European birds, but its tiny 

 body contains a mighty spirit ! 



The mystery of migration indeed never seems so profound as when 

 we contemplate the long journeys by land and sea that this " scrap 

 of valour," weighing only seventy-six grains, cheerfully undertakes. 

 It is not gifted with great powers of flight, and in its ordinary daily 

 life just flits from tree to tree, seldom crossing large open spaces. 

 Yet in the autumn vast flocks occasionally arrive on the east coast 

 between September and November. " On such occasions," writes 

 Howard Saunders, "bushes in gardens on the coast are covered 

 with birds as with a swarm of bees, crowds flutter round the lanterns 

 of lighthouses, and the rigging of fishing-smacks in the North Sea is 

 thronged with weary travellers." 



It seems as if, when they are seized with the migration impulse, 

 birds for the time being are endowed with an almost supernatural 

 physical strength or nerve -force; else how could the two-inch 

 wings of the goldcrest beat across the North Sea from Scandi- 

 navia ; or over the Mediterranean from North Africa ? One is silent 

 before this vast problem and can only reverently ask 



" What Lamp had Destiny to guide 

 Her little children, stumbling in the dark ? " 



Gatke 1 speaks of an immense migration of goldcrests in 1882, 

 which began on September 8th and reached its climax on the 

 night of the 28th, when, he says "Perhaps the simile of a snow- 

 storm may help to convey an idea of the scene. 2 Throughout the 

 whole of October of that year a similar unprecedented migration 



1 Manual of British Birds, 2nd ed., p. 57. 



2 Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory, pp. 317, 318. 



