SOFT-BILLED BIRDS. 121 



tressful seasons, while this keeps aloof in fields and 

 woods ; but perhaps this may be the reason why 

 they often perish, and why they are almost as rare 

 as any bird we know 1 . 



I have no reason to doubt but that the soft- 

 billed birds, which winter with us, subsist chiefly 

 on insects in their aurelia state. All the species of 

 wagtails in severe weather haunt shallow streams, 

 near their spring-heads, where they never freeze ; 

 and, by wading, pick out the aurelias of the genus 

 of Phryganece 2 , &c. 



Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in 

 hard weather, where they pick up crumbs and 

 other sweepings ; and in mild weather they pro- 

 cure worms, w r hich are stirring every month in the 

 year, as any one may see that will only be at the 

 trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on any 

 mild winter's night. Red-breasts and wrens in 

 the winter haunt out-houses, stables, and barns, 

 where they find spiders and flies that have laid 

 themselves up during the cold season. But the 

 grand support of the soft-billed birds in winter is 

 that infinite profusion of aurelise of the lepidoptera 

 ordo, which is fastened to the twigs of trees and 



1 This species extends as far as the Orkney Isles. There 

 is a constant migration of this species, about the end of 

 autumn, from the north of Europe, though we also have 

 a great many that are stationary. Mr. Selby has recorded a 

 very singular instance of migration, which occurred on the 

 24th and 25th of October, 1822. After a severe gale, with 

 thick fog, from the north-east, thousands of these birds were 

 seen to arrive on fhe sea-shore and sand-banks of the North- 

 umbrian coast ; many of them so fatigued by the length of 

 their flight, as to be unable to rise again from the ground ; 

 and great numbers were in consequence caught or de- 

 stroyed This flight must have been immense in quantity, 

 as its extent was traced through the whole length of the 

 coasts of Northumberland and Durham. W. J. 



3 See Derham's Physico- Theology, p. 235. 



