236 FOREIGN BIRDS. 



hedges, and all their insect food, which for months 

 had been their only supply, and in the thick 

 covert of the gooseberry extract with great dex- 

 terity the pulp of the fruit, or strip the currant of 

 its berry. The elegant, slender form of the female, 

 her snowy throat and silvery stomach, render her 

 very conspicuous as she skuttles away to hide her- 

 self in the bush : her plain, brown-backed mate 

 seems rather less timid, but yet carefully avoids 

 all symptoms of familiarity. Other doubtful little 

 birds likewise appear, and are gone, several of which, 

 however, are probably the young of ascertained 

 species. And here the little willow- wren is often to 

 be seen : he comes in company with his travelling 

 friends, not as a partaker of their plunder, appear- 

 ing never to abandon his appetite for insect food : 

 the species may change with the season, but still it 

 is animal : he glides about our rows of peas, peeps 

 under the leaves of fruit trees for aphides and 

 moths, continuing this harmless pursuit until the 

 cold mornings of autumn drive him to milder re- 

 gions. All these fruit-eating birds seem to have a 

 very discriminating taste and a decided preference 

 for the richest sorts the sweetest variety of the 

 gooseberry or the currant always being selected ; 

 and when they are consumed, less saccharine dain- 

 ties are submitted to : but the hedge blackberry 

 of the season our little foreign connoisseurs disdain 

 to feed on, leaving it for the humbler appetited 



