112 THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 



raise the young of the cirl bunting,* until he ^discovered 

 that they required grasshoppers, is a sufficient instance 

 of the manifest necessity there is for a peculiar food in 

 one period of the life of birds ; and renders it probable 

 that, to obtain a certain aliment, this willow wren, and 

 others of the insect and fruit-feeding birds, direct their 

 flight to distant regions, and is the principal cause of 

 their migrations. 



It is some stimulus like this, which urges that little 

 creature, the golden-crested wren (motacilla regulus), 

 that usually only flits from tree to tree, and never at- 

 tempts upon common occasions a longer flight, to tra- 

 verse the vast distance from the Orkneys to the Shet- 

 land Isles over stormy seas that admit no possible rest 

 during its long passage of above fifty miles ! There it 

 breeds its young ; but this one object accomplished, it 

 leaves those isles, dares again this tedious flight, and 

 seeks a milder clime. With us it never migrates, lives 

 much in our fir groves during the winter, arid breeds in 

 our shrubberies in summer. Peculiar necessities, such 

 as these, may incite the migration of many birds ; but 

 that certain species, which lead solitary lives, or asso- 

 ciate only in very small parties, should at stated periods 

 congregate from all parts to one spot, and there hold 

 council on a removal, in which the very sexes occasion- 

 ally separate, is one of the most extraordinary procedures 

 that we meet with among animals. 



If the sober, domestic attachments of the hedge 

 sparrow please us, we are not less charmed with the 

 innocent, blithesome gaiety of the linnet (fringilla 

 linota). But this songster is no solitary visiter of our 

 dwellings : it delights and lives in society, frequenting 

 open commons and gorsy fields, where several pairs, 

 without the least rivalry or contention, will build their 

 nests and rear their offspring in the same neighborhood, 

 twittering and warbling all the day long. This duty 

 over, the families unite, and form large associations, 

 feeding and moving in company as one united house- 

 hold ; and, resorting to the head of some sunny tree, 



* Linnean Transactions, vol. vii. 



