WILD LIFE IN HARD WEATHER 209 



burlesque those troubles, in the scarcity of food, 

 and danger from frost, which are brought him 

 by the keen breath of the winter wind, I cannot, 

 somehow, imagine that his indifference to ad- 

 verse conditions is assumed. Since childhood, 

 I have thought him possessed of a stout heart 

 in a tiny body, and with a strong, cheery voice 

 fit to proclaim his happy-go-lucky philosophy. 

 Like the hedge-sparrow when in full, unhesitating 

 song, the nut-brown wren commences his out- 

 bursts of joy with a high, shrill note followed by 

 a rapid, rollicking phrase. The wren sings all 

 through the year, except just after midsummer, 

 when, as if he noticed the lengthening shadows 

 on the grass by the hedgerow, he is silent for 

 three or four weeks, till, with the ripening of 

 the golden corn, he finds again that philosophy 

 which was in winter the secret of his merry life. 

 No wonder that the old Celtic bards loved the 

 wren, and his fellow winter songster, the sprightly 

 redbreast ! According to the old Cymric saying : 



" Pwy by nag dorrith nyth y dryw, 

 Ni chaiff weled gwyneb Duw." 



(He who breaks the nest of the wren 

 shall not see the face of God.) 



Whereas the wren's music perpetually displays 

 the spirit of a bohemian, the robin's carol often 

 betrays a minor undertone of pensive melan- 

 choly, and recalls the beauty of a past summer, 



