BIRDS AT THEIR BEST 5 



crimson eye sparkling, and throat puffed out 

 with his little scolding notes. But his colour 

 was no longer that of the furze wren : seen at a 

 distance the upper plumage always appears slaty- 

 black ; near at hand it is of a deep slaty -brown ; 

 now it was dark, sprinkled or frosted over with a 

 deUcate greyish -white, the white of oxidised 

 silver ; and this rare and beautiful appearance 

 continued for a space of about twenty seconds ; 

 but no sooner did he flit to another spray than it 

 vanished, and he was once more the slaty-brown 

 little bird with a chestnut-red breast. 



It is unUkely that I shall ever again see 

 the furze wren in this aspect, with a curious 

 splendour wrought by the sunUght in the dark but 

 semi-translucent delicate feathers of his mantle ; 

 but its image is in the mind, and, with a thousand 

 others equally beautiful, remains to me a per- 

 manent possession. 



As I went in to see the famous Booth Collec- 

 tion, a thought of the bird I have just described 

 came into my mind ; and glancing round the 

 big long room with shelves crowded with stuffed 

 birds, like the crowded shelves of a shop, to 

 see where the Dartford warblers were, I went 



