118 FOOD OF SMALL BIRDS. 



deed it is marvellous how any of the insectivorous birds, 

 that pass their winter with us, are supplied with food 

 during inclement seasons, unless they have greater 

 powers of abstinence than we are aware of: but our 

 small birds are generally much more active than those 

 of a larger bulk ; the common wren is all animation, its 

 actions and movements bespeak hilarity and animal 

 spirits ; and that minute creature, too, the golden-crest- 

 ed wren, is always in motion, flitting from the yew hedge 

 to the fir, or darting away to taller trees with a spring 

 and a power we could not expect from its size. These 

 muscular exertions must greatly counteract the effects 

 of seasons, and enable these atoms of animals to sup- 

 port so cheerfully and gaily the winters of our climate. 

 But in truth this torn-tit perishes in severe winters in 

 great numbers. It roosts under the eaves of our hay- 

 stacks, and in little holes of the mows, where we often 

 find it dead, perished by cold or hunger, or conjointly 

 by both ; yet the race survives, and this annual w r aste 

 is recruited by the prolificacy of the creature, the nest 

 of which will frequently contain from seven to nine 

 young ones. Its chief subsistence is insects, which it 

 hunts out with unwearied perseverance. It peeps into 

 the nail-holes of our walls, which, though closed by the 

 cobweb, will not secrete the spider within ; and draws 

 out the chrysalis of the cabbage butterfly from the 

 chinks in the barn : but a supply of such food is pre- 

 carious, and becomes exhausted. It then resorts to our 

 yards, and picks diminutive morsels from some rejected 

 bone, or scraps from the butcher's stall : yet this is the 

 result of necessity, not choice; for no sooner is other 

 food attainable, than it retires to its woods and thickets. 

 In summer it certainly will regale itself with our garden 

 pease, and shells a pod of marrowfats With great dex- 

 terity; but this, we believe, is the extent of its crimi- 

 nality. Yet for this venial indulgence do we proscribe 

 it, rank it with vermin, and set a price upon its head, 

 giving four-pence for the dozen, probably the ancient 

 payment when the groat was a coin. However power- 

 ful the stimulus was then, we yet find it a sufficient in- 



