46 THE GOLD-CRESTED WEEN 



very modest computation — the daily aggregate amounted 

 to thirty-one miles, being a distance 622,614 times greater 

 than the traveller's stature, 3^ inches, measured from 

 tip of bill to tip of tail. To equal this performance, a 

 six-foot man would have to travel 707J miles in a single 

 day without assistance to his natural means of locomotion, 

 or, say, from Land's End to John o' Groats, and to repeat 

 the journey daily for ten days, besides catching live 

 animals and personally distributing them among his 

 family 546 times in each day. 



The gold-crested wren (by the bye, it is not a wren, 

 Troglodytes, but belongs to a separate genus Begulus, 

 little distinct from the warblers, Silvia) is one of those 

 pretty birds which it is gratifying to note are increasing 

 in numbers in this country, owing to the increase of 

 woodland, especially in the north of Scotland. Moreover, 

 it is a creature against which no human being can bear 

 a grudge, for its pursuits are not only harmless, but 

 wholly beneficial, seeing that it preys diligently upon 

 insects infesting trees. A still larger increase, and from 

 a similar cause, has taken place of late years in the cross- 

 bill — a brilliant denizen of the pine woods of the Scottish 

 Highlands. But the crossbill — more's the pity! — finds 

 ill favour from those ambitious persons who have set 

 scientific forestry on foot for the first time in Britain. 

 The crossbill makes his staple diet on the seeds of pine 

 and fir, sheering asunder the cones with his powerful bill, 

 and thereby seriously interfering with the process of 

 natural regeneration from self-sown seeds which form 

 such an important part in the economy of Continental 

 foresters. The crossbill, therefore, has been proscribed 

 on certain Highland estates as ruthlessly as ever were 



