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



British songsters by the erect position of its tail. Its restlessness, 

 too, renders it particularly conspicuous ; for, when we look at it, we 

 find it so perpetually on the move, that I cannot recollect to have 

 observed this diminutive rover at rest on a branch for three minutes 

 in continuation. Its habits are solitary to the fullest extent of the 

 word; and it seems to bear hard weather better than either the 

 hedge sparrow or the robin ; for whilst these two birds approach our 

 habitations in quest of food and shelter, with their plumage raised 

 as indicative of cold, the wren may be seen in ordinary pursuit, 

 amid icicles which hang from the bare roots of shrubs and trees, on 

 the banks of the neighbouring rivulets; and amongst these roots 

 it is particularly fond of building its oval nest. 



The ancients called the wren Troglodytes; but it is now hon- 

 oured with the high-sounding name of Anorthura ; alleging for a 

 reason that the ancients were quite mistaken in their supposition 

 that this bird was an inhabitant of caves, as it is never to be seen 

 within them. Methinks that the ancients were quite right and 

 that our modern masters in ornithology are quite wrong. If we 

 only for a moment reflect that the nest of the wren is spherical, and 

 is of itself, as it were, a little cave, we can easily imagine that the 

 ancients, on seeing the bird going in and out of this artificial cave, 

 considered the word Troglodytes an appropriate appellation. 



The habits of the hedge sparrow are not quite so solitary as those 

 of the wren. It will approach the window in cold weather, and there 

 pick up a scanty meal with the robin, the chaffinch, and the house 

 sparrow. Still, we very rarely see three hedge sparrows in company. 

 As these birds inhabit low shrubs and the bottoms of hawthorn fences, 

 and are ever on the stir amid old pieces of wood and lumber, put 

 apart for the use of the farmyard, we cannot be surprised that they, 

 as well as the robin and the wren, which are fond of such localities, 

 should fall an easy prey to the cat, the weasel, the foumart, and 

 Hanoverian rat, which last all the world knows to be uncommonly 

 ravenous. To these plunderers, we may possibly attribute the cause 

 why, from year to year, there is no apparent increase in the numbei 

 of these lowly winter-songsters, be the protection afforded them ever 

 so great. 



I have a Tom-cat here of surprising size and beauty. He would 



