iTeftruarp 



Most birds, like otiier vertebrate animals, snatch intervals 

 The Gold °^ ^^^^ during the day, if daytime be their period 

 crested of activity. Even such nocturnal animals as 

 ^"^ the fox and the owl do not spend the hours of 

 darkness in perpetual motion. The albatross itself, which 

 remains on the wing in the wake of a ship for many days 

 without alighting, is credited by Tom Moore, probably 

 correctly, with ' cloud-rocked slumberings.' The flight of 

 that great bird is mainly automatic ; its own weight acts 

 like the string of a kite, and the creature is propelled by 

 the air passing under the rigid ' fore-leach ' of the wing, 

 and pressing upwards the pliant ' after-leach.' Swifts 

 and swallows, most aerial of British birds, may occasionally 

 be seen in brief repose ; not so the tiniest of all our 

 feathered fowls, the gold-crested wren. I doubt whether 

 the most vigilant observer has ever detected one of these 

 little creatures otherwise than in rapid motion, if it was 

 not the hen bird sitting close on her eggs in that delicate 

 shrine which she and her mate have the hereditary craft 

 to construct. 



During the present winter (1901), a solitary goldcrest 

 has been a frequent morning visitor to a large holly-tree 

 before my dining-room windows. It is not the gleaming 



