180 NATURAL HISTORY 



why they shun the rigour of our winters ; for the robust 

 wryneck (so much resembling the hardy race of 

 wood-peckers) migrates, while the feeble little golden- 

 crowned wren, that shadow of a bird, braves our 

 severest frosts without availing himself of houses or 

 villages, to which most of our winter birds crowd in 

 distressful seasons, while this keeps aloof in fields and 

 woods ; but perhaps this may be the reason why they 

 may often perish, and why they are almost as rare as 

 any bird we know 1 . 



I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed 

 birds, which winter with us, subsist chiefly on insects 

 in their aurelia state. All the species of wagtails in 

 severe weather haunt shallow streams near their spring- 



1 I think it worthy of remark that this bird abounds in Scotland. I 

 saw many hundreds there last autumn. In Kent I have observed only a 

 few pairs. RENNIE. 



The golden-crested wren and the common brown wren are both 

 very impatient of cold. In confinement, the least frost is immediately 

 fatal to them. In a wild state, they keep themselves warm by constant 

 active motion in the day, and at night they secrete themselves in places 

 where the frost cannot reach them ; but I apprehend that numbers do 

 perish in severe winters. I once caught half a dozen golden wrens at 

 the beginning of winter, and they lived extremely well upon egg and 

 meat, being exceedingly tame. At roosting time there was always a 

 whimsical conflict amongst them for the inside places as being the warm- 

 est, which ended of course by the weakest going to the wall. The scene 

 began with a low whistling call amongst them to roost, and the two birds 

 on the extreme right and left flew on the backs of those in the centre, and 

 squeezed themselves into the middle. A fresh couple from the flanks 

 immediately renewed the attack upon the centre, and the conflict conti- 

 nued till the light began to fail them. A severe frost in February killed 

 all but one of them in one night, though in a furnished drawing-room. 

 The survivor was preserved in a little cage by burying it every night 

 under the sofa cushions ; but having been, one sharp morning, taken from 

 under them before the room was sufficiently warmed by the fire, though 

 perfectly well when removed, it was dead in ten minutes. The nightin- 

 gale is not much more tender of cold than a canary-bird. The golden- 

 crowned wren very much frequents spruce fir trees and cedars, and hangs 

 its nest under their branches: it is also fond of the neighbourhood of 

 furze bushes, under which it probably finds warm refuge from the cold. 

 The brown wren is very apt, in frosty weather, to roost in cowhouses, 

 where the cattle keep it warm. W. H. 



