A WOOD WREN AT WELLS 91 



this country, at the end of April or early in May, 

 when the young foliage does not so completely 

 hide his shght unresting form, as is the case 

 afterwards. For he, too, is green in colour ; 

 hke Wordsworth's green linnet, 



A brother of the leaves he seems. 



There is another reason why he can be seen 

 so much better during the first days of his sojourn 

 with us : he does not then keep to the higher 

 parts of the taU trees he frequents, as his habit 

 is later, when the air is warm and the minute 

 winged insects on which he feeds are abundant 

 on the upper sun -touched foliage of the high 

 oaks and beeches. On account of that ambitious 

 habit of the wood wren there is no bird with us 

 so difficult to observe ; you may spend hours at 

 a spot, where his voice sounds from the trees at 

 intervals of half a minute to a minute, without 

 once getting a ghmpse of his form. At the end 

 of April the trees are stiU very thinly clad ; the 

 upper foliage is but an airy garment, a shght 

 golden-green mist, through which the sun shines, 

 lighting up the dim interior, and making the bed 

 of old fallen beech-leaves look like a floor of red 



