104 OUR NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



from earliest ages, have been called the king of 

 the birds, and this not merely bj ancient writers, 

 but by the peasantry of almost every land. Our 

 little gold-crest seems fitted by his beautiful coro- 

 nal to bear the name of Kinglet, the synonyrae of 

 which is so general ; but the wren is small and 

 feeble, and lias withal no robe of royalty, nor the 

 crown of gokl. The old writers tell that the eagle 

 fought with the wren, as -w-ith a rival king; and 

 Colonel Valiancy, in his learned work on tlie Irish, 

 terms the wren, the augur's favouiite, and remarks 

 that the Diiiids represented it as the king of birds. 

 He adds, that the superstitious reverence for- 

 merly shown to this little creature, offended the 

 early Christian missionaries, and tliat their dis- 

 pleasure on account of it originated the cruel 

 practice before alluded to, of hunting and killing 

 the bird on Clu'ist mas-day. Of old times it was 

 also called 



*' The little wrenne, 

 Our Lady's henne;" 



so that, somehow or other, the bird has, from 

 remotest periods, been an object of superstition. 

 Even to the present day, the Italians call it the 

 Little King {Reattino), the King of the hedge {Re di 



