A WOOD WREN AT WELLS 103 



There is another reason why he can be seen so 

 much better during the first days of his sojourn 

 with us : he does not then keep to the higher parts 

 of the tall trees he frequents, as his habit is later, 

 when the air is warm and the minute winged insects 

 on which he feeds are abundant on the upper sun- 

 touched foliage of the high oaks and beeches. On 

 account of that ambitious habit of the wood wren 

 there is no bird with us so difficult to observe ; 

 you may spend hours at a spot, where his voice 

 sounds from the trees at intervals of half a minute 

 to a minute, without once getting a glimpse of his 

 form. At the end of April the trees are still very 

 thinly clad ; the upper foliage is but an airy gar- 

 ment, a slight golden-green mist, through which 

 the sun shines, lighting up the dim interior, and 

 making the bed of old fallen beech-leaves look 

 like a floor of red gold. The small- winged insects, 

 sun-loving and sensitive to cold, then hold their 

 revels near the surface ; and the bird, too, prefers 

 the neighbourhood of the earth. It was so in the 

 case of the wood wren I observed at Wells, watch- 

 ing him on several consecutive days, sometimes 

 for an hour or two at a stretch, and generally more 

 than once a day. The spot where he was always 

 to be found was quite free from underwood, and 



