THE LINH£I. 



LETTER XXIII. 



THE GOLDEN -CRESTED WREN — AMATEURS OP FLOWERS — THE PEONY. 



Thbee is a little bird flitting about under the great elms, 

 which is most likely to place its nest in some angle of a wall, 

 where we shall easily find it : that is a wren, the regulus cris- 

 tatus; not the same as the one that dwells in a corner of my 

 old house. The other is called troglodytes parvulus, or wren. 



This one, which, like the other, could escape through the 

 wires of a cage without rumpling its feathers, is of an olive 

 cast ; but the male bears on his head a little tuft of a brilliant 

 gold : the tuft on the head of the female is of a citron colour. 

 Their nest is lined with moss, spiders' webs, and the down 

 which covers the seeds of certain plants. The hen lays six 

 eggs in it, white, tinged with rose-colour, and about as large 

 as peas. 



But what sweet and enchanting melody appears to flow 

 from the sharply pointed leaves of that bushy holly ! A little 

 linnet, with its brown head, is there sitting upon its five 

 reddish eggs, spotted with chestnut, in a nest of grass and 

 hair, which she has placed upon one of the lowest branches. 

 Upon a bough, a little more elevated, sits her mate, whose 

 head is black,, singing, to divert her during the tediousness of 

 incubation. He only breaks ofi' in his song to go and seek 



