756 



SYLVIA. 



insect egg which is lodged in the bud shall become 

 a wasting canker-worm or not ; but if the egg is 

 there there is never any security against the grub. 

 Now the larvae or grubs which destroy the buds, 

 especially the flower-buds of fruit trees, are all pro- 

 duced from eggs which are deposited in the autumn ; 

 and each of the millions of insects which these little 

 birds capture, is the means of preventing the deposi- 

 tation of a vast number of eggs. If, therefore, there 

 is any one time at which the birds which range the 

 twigs and buds claim our especial protection, that 

 time is the autumn ; for he who wantonly shoots one 

 little bird in the orchard during that season, is almost 

 certain to pay for his sport ; not only by a bushel of 

 next year's apples, but by serious injury to the trees. 



With us, these autumnal labours are not performed 

 so much by the crested wrens, as by the tits (see the 

 article TIT) ; but our crested wrens are of great 

 service to the copses and woods, especially to the 

 pines and other trees that have their leaves on in 

 the winter. The leaves of such trees are seldom so 

 much eaten by insects as those of deciduous trees ; 

 but the buds of the pines especially are very subject 

 to ravages ; for the shoot of the pine is produced as 

 wood before there is any development of the leaves 

 or spines upon it ; and until these have made some 

 progress it is tender, sweet, juicy, and no bad vege- 

 table for human use, to say nothing of insects. Some 

 of the destroyers of these young shoots are flies, and 

 some beetles ; but the larva? of both are exceedingly 

 destructive, and would be quite ruinous were it not 

 for such birds as the crested wrens, whose energy and 

 light weight enable them freely to examine the mi- 

 nutest twig, and whose voracity fits them for con- 

 suming so many myriads of destroyers. It is true 

 that the crested wrens are not exactly the birds which 

 destroy the eggs and larvae of the Scolytid<s and other 

 mining beetles (see the article SCOLYTUS), which fell 

 whole forests and groves with the same certainty as 

 the axe, for the bark birds, creepers, woodpeckers, 

 and others, have the especial regulation of these ; 

 but the labours of the wrens are of most essential 

 service in their own particular department. 



It is highly probable that there are in the extensive 

 forests of many parts of the temperate and the cold 

 regions, or migratory between the two, other species 

 of crested wrens besides those that we have enumer- 

 ated ; but as the known species differ but little in 

 appearance, and hardly any thing in manner, the 

 enumeration of more, even if they were known, 

 would make little or no addition to our stock of really 

 useful knowledge. Even in those which we have 

 mentioned there is not much diversity of information ; 

 but we have endeavoured to point out the account of 

 the habits among all the four ; and, minute as the 

 birds are, there are not many that offer a more plea- 

 sing study or lead the student into more delightful 

 places. 



6. TROGLODYTES (WREN). The characters and 

 manners, as well as the form of the crestless wrens, 

 are so far like those of the crested ones, that there 

 does not app.ear to be much chance of error in ap- 

 plying the same common name to them ; but they, 

 at the same time, differ so much that they cannot with 

 propriety be considered as species of the same genus. 

 In some respects the crestless wrens resemble the 

 robins more than they do any others of the family ; 

 but they still differ considerably from them. The bill 

 is much more slender, awl-shaped, and a littile bent in 



its whole length : the body is even more short and 

 compact than that of the redbreast. The habits are 

 nearly the same, only the wren is a more hiding bird, 

 which has occasioned the name Troglodytes, or a 

 dweller in holes. There are many birds that have 

 been called wrens, which are not true wrens in either 

 their characters or their habits; and so we shall con- 

 fine our notice to one or two species which properly 

 belong to the genus. They are birds of the cold and 

 temperate parts of the nothern hemisphere. 



Common Wren (T. vulgaris). This species has been 

 called Europants, but not very properly, for it is 

 equally abundant in the north of Asia, and also, 

 though perhaps with some difference of appearance, 

 (which is usual among similar birds in the two con- 

 tinents,) in the more northerly parts of America. In 

 the middle states it is called the " winter" wren, to dis- 

 tinguish it from another species which comes from the 

 south in spring, as this one does from the north in 

 autumn, and is on that account called the " summer" 

 wren. On the eastern continent it is also known 

 most familiarly as a winter bird, but it is not so mi- 

 gratory as it is in America, and in Britain it, perhaps, 

 seldom migrates farther than between the house and 

 the nearest grove. As -a household bird in the cold 

 season, its history is closely connected with that of 

 the redbreast, and popular story has placed the two 

 in the relation of man and wife, " Kitty Wren" being 

 the spouse of red-breasted " Robin." Of course, the 

 paucity of the supposed wives did not occur to the 

 rustics ; but if their theory had been true, the robins 

 would have deserved the epithet Caelcbs far more 

 than the chaffinch, for there are usually fifty robins 

 seen for one wren, and thus the former, did they de- 

 pend on the latter, would be as badly wived as the 

 folks of Australia. 



In its lineal dimensions, the common wren does not 

 differ much from the crested ones, the length being 

 about four inches, and the stretch of the wings about 

 six. The body is also short, and the tail long, though, 

 perhaps, not quite so long as in the crested ones, and 

 it is not forked ; it is in general borne sloping 

 upward at a considerable angle with the axis of the 

 body. The weight is, however, fully three times that 

 of the gold-crest, being about two hundred and fifty 

 grains to eighty. It is, indeed, one of the heaviest, 

 and also the stoutest, for its inches, of all the feathered 

 race. 



Of course, the bird is fitted for very different action 

 from that of the light and airy crested wrens ; for 

 while they are beating about for their food among 

 the buds and sprays, it is generally ranging among, 

 or below, the underwood. It lodges in holes of the 

 earth, of walls, of trees, or in heaps of stones, or un- 

 der fallen timber; and even during the day it may 

 be seen to leap about by the assistance of its wings 

 rather than to fly. Like the robins, the wrens never 

 formally associate with each other ; for in the places 

 where they are most abundant, each individual seems 

 to act entirely for itself. In cold weather, however, 

 several of them may sometimes be found in the same 

 hole ; but there is no likelihood of their entering these 

 by mutual consent, and their courage may be so taken 

 down by the cold, that their pugnacity, which is pretty 

 strong and forward at other times, may make them 

 prefer heat to hostility. 



The wren is a dusky-looking little bird, and when 

 it moves about in a pile of sticks, or under the leaf- 

 less brushwood, it might, at first sight, be mistaken 



