180 NATURAL lilSTORY 



while this keeps aloof in fields and woods ; 

 but perhaps this may be the reason why 

 they may often perish, and why they are 

 almost as rare as any bird we know. 



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 oi Phnjganecp* Sec. 



Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gut- 

 ters in hard weather, where they pick up 

 crumbs and other sweepings : and in mild 

 weather they procure worms, which 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 



* Sec Dcrham's Physico-theology, p. 235. 



