264 



THE WOOD WREN. 



which it is still frequently confounded. It measures in length 

 five inches and a half; bill horn-colour ; upper mandible bent 

 at the tip, and rather longer than the under ; irides hazel ; 

 nostrils beset with bristles ; top of the head, neck, back, and 

 tail-coverts olive green ; throat and cheeks yellow, paler on the 

 breast ; belly and vent of a most beautiful silvery white ; through 

 the eye passes a yellow line ; legs rather more than an inch 

 long, of a horn-colour, claws paler. 



MB. SWEET'S ACCOUNT OF THE WOOD WREN. 



This elegant and beautiful little species ranks itself amongst 

 my list of favourites. It visits this country the beginning of 

 April, and leaves it in August, or the beginning of September. 

 It is generally to be found in summer amongst tall trees in 

 woods and plantations, where it is readily detected on its arrival,, 

 by a shrill shaking sort of note that may be heard at a great 

 distance, and cannot be confounded with any other bird. On 

 its first arrival it sings the greater part of the day, and continues 

 its song, more or less, through the summer, except at the time 

 it is engaged in feeding its young. Its nest is built on the 

 ground in a thicket amongst moss and dead leaves, so that it is 

 impossible to find it without watching one of the old ones to the 

 nest, which is easily done when they have young. They may 

 either be tamed when old, or reared from the nest, and are not 

 difficult to be caught when young with a little bird-lime at the 

 end of a fishing-rod, as may several other species of this inter- 

 esting group. 



As the present species feeds entirely upon insects when wild, 

 the greater part of which it catches on the wing, it will be use- 

 less to give it any sort of fruit or berry ; but bread and milk, 

 bruised hemp-seed and bread, with bits of fresh lean meat 

 cut very small and mixed up in it, will be its general food. 

 It is also very fond of the yolk of an egg boiled hard, and 

 crumbled small, or stirred up with the point of a knife that it 

 may peck it out of the shell as it likes. Sometimes these 

 birds are apt to get off their other food, and will live on egg 

 several days ; at such a time if a few flies could be procured for 

 them, it would be the most likely to restore their appetite. 



