THE WREN, THE HEDGE SPARROW, AND THE ROBIN. 341 



There is a problem to be solved in the economy of these three 

 soft-billed little birds, before we can safely come to the conclusion, 

 that severity of climate, and want of food, are the real causes why 

 our summer birds of passage leave us shortly after the sun has gone 

 down into the southern hemisphere. Like them, the wren, the 

 hedge sparrow, and the robin, are insectivorous, and they differ not 

 in the texture of their plumage ; still, they do not accompany their 

 departing congeners, but prefer to remain in this cold and stormy 

 quarter of the world throughout the whole of the year. They may 

 certainly suffer more or less during the chilling period of frost and 

 snow; nevertheless, their breed is always kept up ; and we find, on 

 the return of spring, that they have not suffered more than others 

 which are apparently better suited to brave the rigour of an English 

 winter than they are. 



There is yet another point which wants settling in the habits of 

 these birds. I allude to their song. When we are informed that 

 incubation is the main inducement to melody in the feathered tribe, 

 we have only to step out after sunrise into the surrounding ever- 

 greens, and there we are sure to hear either the wren, the hedge 

 sparrow, or the robin, in fine song, although not a single twig has 

 been laid, or a piece of moss produced in furtherance of a nest, 

 wherein to raise their future young. Certainly, in this case, neither 

 love nor warmth could have had any hand in tuning the winter lyre 

 of these little sons of Orpheus. 



It now and then happens that we are led astray by our own feel- 

 ings when we pronounce judgment on the actions of irrational 

 animals. There is a pretty good proof of this in the story which we 

 have of the American polecat. On being told that this ill-scented 

 animal discharges a " fluid given him by Nature as a defence," I 

 cannot refrain from asking, by what power of intuition the polecat 

 is convinced that a smell, naturally agreeable to itself, is absolutely 

 intolerable to man ? Did birds and beasts speak an intelligible lan- 

 guage, as they are said to have done in the days of Ovid, we should 

 get at their true history with greater ease; and our ornithology 

 would be much more free from the romance which at present per- 

 vades it. 



The wren is at once distinguished in appearance from our smaller 



