ANIMAL INSTINCT. 



tained 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, 

 appearing 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 

 regions. All these fruit-eating birds seem to have 

 a very discriminating taste and a decided prefer- 

 ence for the richest sorts the sweetest variety of 

 the gooseberry or the currant always being se- 

 lected ; and when they are consumed, less saccha- 

 rine dainties are submitted to : but the hedge 

 blackberry of the season our little foreign connois- 

 seurs disdain to feed on, leaving it for the humbler- 

 appetited natives they are away to sunnier regions 

 and more grateful food. 



June 14. I was much pleased this day by 

 detecting the stratagems of a common wren to 

 conceal its nest from observation. It had formed 

 a hollow space in the thatch, on the inside of my 

 cow-shed, in which it had placed its nest by the 

 side of a rafter, and finished it with its usual neat- 

 ness ; but lest the orifice of its cell should engage 

 attention, it had negligently hung a ragged piece 

 of moss on the straw-work, concealing the entrance, 

 and apparently proceeding from the rafter ; and so 

 perfect was the deception, that I should not have 

 noticed it, though tolerably observant of such 



