230 INSESSORES. REGULUS. Regulus. 



and is usually suspended from the under part of a thickly- 

 clothed fir-branch ; and not unfrequently, in failure of such 

 trees, from the small branch of an oak. The eggs vary from 

 seven to ten, are of a pale wood-brown colour, and weigh 

 from nine to ten grains each. In attending to the economy 

 of this handsome little bird, the following circumstances have 

 passed under my observation. 



On the 24th and 25th of October 1822, after a very se- 

 vere gale, with thick fog, from the north-east, (but veering, 

 towards its conclusion, to the east and south of east), thou- 

 sands of these birds were seen to arrive upon the sea- shore 

 and sand-banks of the Northumbrian coast ; many of them 

 so fatigued by the length of their flight, or perhaps by the 

 unfavourable shift of wind, as to be unable to rise again from 

 the ground, and great numbers were in consequence caught 

 or destroyed. This flight must have been immense in quan- 

 tity, as its extent was traced through the whole length of the 

 coasts of Northumberland and Durham. There appears 

 little doubt of this having been a migration from the more 

 northern provinces of Europe, (probably furnished by the 

 pine-forests of Norway, Sweden, &c.), from the circumstance 

 of its arrival being simultaneous with that of large flights of 

 the Woodcock, Fieldfare, and Redwing. Although I had 

 never before witnessed the actual arrival of the Gold-crested 

 Regulus, I had long felt convinced, from the great and sud- 

 den increase of the species during the autumnal and hyemal 

 months, that our indigenous birds must be augmented by 

 a body of strangers making these shores their winter's re- 

 sort. 



A more extraordinary circumstance in the economy of this 

 bird took place during the same winter *, viz. the total dis- 

 appearance of the whole tribe, natives as well as strangers, 

 throughout Scotland and the north of England. This hap- 

 pened towards the conclusion of the month of January 1823, 



• See voL v. p. 397, of Memoirs of Wernerian Society. 



