GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 451 



dead leaves, and is lined with a quantity of small feathers*; 

 both for security and architecture, it is one of the prettiest 

 examples to be found among the structures of our indigenous 

 birds. But instances are known in which it has been built 

 upon the upper surface of a branch, and Mr. Hewitson has 

 seen it placed against the trunk of a tree upon the base of 

 a diverging branch, and again in the middle of a low juniper 

 little more than a foot from the ground. So confident and 

 bold is the female when sitting on her nest, as to allow very 

 close observation without flying off. She lays from six to 

 ten eggs, generally of a pale ochraceous-white, mottled or 

 suffused, especially at the larger end, with light reddish- 

 brown ; but sometimes they are quite white and occasionally 

 of a uniform brownish-yellow ; while Mr. Hewitson mentions 

 a nest in which they resembled those of the Willow- Wren, 

 being sparingly spotted with red-brown. They measure 

 from *56 to '5 by from '41 to * 38 in. Montagu, who timed 

 the visit of a female to her brood of eight nestlings which 

 he kept in his room, found that she came once in each 

 minute and a half or two minutes, or, upon an average, 

 thirty-six times in an hour ; and this continued full sixteen' 

 hours in a day. The male would not venture into the room ; 

 yet the female would feed her young while the nest was 

 held in the hand. Selby says, that he has known the young 

 to be fully fledged as early as the third week of April. 



The Golden-crested Wren is distributed generally over 

 the whole of the British Islands, and appears to breed 

 regularly where it occurs, except in the Outer Hebrides, 

 Orkney and Shetland. Though resident with us as a species 

 throughout the whole year, the fact is now established on the 

 fullest evidence that in autumn vast flights of this bird come 

 to some part or other of our coast, and its return-migration 

 in spring has been observed by Mr. Gray. Selby was the 

 first to notice the movement, and called attention to it in 

 1824 (Mem. Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc. v. p. 397). Having 



* Thompson, oil the authority of two friends, says that these materials are 

 sometimes stolen from the nest of the Chaffinch. 



