116 BIEDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



lesser wing-coverts and all the quills hair-brown; 

 the wing-coverts and tertials more or less margined 

 with olive-green, according to the time of the year ; 

 there is a light yellowish streak over the eye ; the 

 under wing-coverts are a sort of sulphur-yellow; 

 all the rest of the under parts are white, tinged 

 or rather streaked with sulphur-yellow ; tail 

 hair-brown; (in young birds and those shot soon 

 after the moult, margined with olive-green; the 

 tinge also of that colour on the upper parts is 

 caused by the unworn margins of the feathers 

 in fact, the plumage both of this bird and of the last 

 is much altered by these unworn margins); legs, 

 toes and claws dark brown, almost black. 



The egg is white, thinly spotted with reddish 

 purple : it is about the size of, but rather rounder 

 than, that of the Willow Warbler. 



GOLDENCRESTED WREN, Regulus cristatus. The 

 beautiful little Goldencrested Wren, the smallest of 

 British birds, is not at all uncommon with us, and 

 is resident all the year, and, as far as I can find, 

 receives no accession to its numbers during the 

 winter, although in the more northern and eastern 

 parts considerable numbers arrive in the autumn. 

 There is a note in the ' Zoologist' for 1864 on this 

 subject, which says, " There is no doubt whatever 

 about this bird arriving on the Yorkshire coast from 

 abroad. After the 12th of October, as regular as 

 clock-work, the first easterly wind brings us large 



