94 OUR nati\t: songsters. 



killing them would infallibly break a bone, or 

 meet with some misfortune during the year ; but 

 the old legend no longer prevails with respect 

 to the insect favourites, with the exception of the 

 cricket ; and the redbreast and wTen seem the 

 only privileged birds of modern times. 



It is remarkable that a bird thus shielded by 

 tradition in one country, should be the object 

 of cruel treatment in another, on the ground of 

 ancient legend. In Ireland, however, a barbarous 

 custom, of great antiquity, prevails in modern 

 days, of hunting the wren on Christmas-day. 

 though happily the usage is becoming less frerpiont 

 than formerly. The peasants are accustomed at 

 this season, just wlicn the poor bird needs most 

 the kindness of man, to chase it through the 

 hedges, and to beat it to death with sticks. This 

 they accomplish by means of two sticks, with one 

 of which they strike the buslies, while the other is 

 thrown at the wren. Mr. Thompson, in treating 

 of the birds in Ireland, remarks that it was the 

 boast of an old man, who died at Kerry, at the age 

 of a hundred years, that he had hunted the wren 

 for the last eighty years on a Christmas-day. On 

 St. Stephen's-day the village children carry alx)ut 



