96 OUR ^'ATTVE SONGSTEES. 



days a whole parisli running like madmen from 

 hedge to hedge, a wren-lmnting." 



Sonnini records a ci-uel hunting of the Avren 

 common in some parts of France, at the latter end 

 of December, but in that country a different 

 tradition accounts for it. 



But leaving superstitious practices, which are 

 too often mingled up with the elements of cruelty, 

 we must return to our bird, the smallest of all 

 our singers save the gold-crest. Its song, short, 

 sweet, and lively as it is, loses nothing from the 

 fact of being heard when none else save that of the 

 robin is likely to arrest our step, as we hasten over 

 the frosty ground. One could hardly believe that 

 so loud a song issued from so small a throat; but 

 the bird gives us full means of ascertaining that it 

 does so, for it sits perched on the top of the farm- 

 yard stack, or on the bough of the hedge-row, or 

 on the gooseberry bush, singing as merrily as if it 

 were summer, and apparently well-pleased to have 

 a listener, as if it scarcely expected that we should 

 come abroad in January to hear it. Nor can we 

 mistake the wren for another bird, for its very 

 smallness serves to identify it, and no sooner has it 

 uttered one short stave, than it is away to another 



