128 GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 



the West Indies, and Europe, but even in Africa and India. 

 The specimen from Europe, in Mr Peale's collection, appears 

 to be in nothing specifically different from the American ; and 



eighths ; of R. cristatus, from, three inches and a half to three inches six- 

 eighths. In R. cristatus, the bill is longer and more .dilated at the base, 

 and the under parts of the body are more tinged with olive ; in R. regu- 

 loicles, the orange part of the crest is much broader, and the black sur- 

 rounding it, with the bar in front, broader and more distinct ; the white 

 streak above the eye is also better marked, and the nape of the neck has 

 a pale ash-gray tinge, nearly wanting entirely in the British species.* 



This very hardy and active tribe, with one exception, inhabits the 

 temperate and northern climates, reaching even to the boundaries of the 

 Arctic Circle. They are migratory in the more northern countries ; and 

 though some species are able to brave our severest winters, others are 

 no doubt obliged, by want of food and a lower degree of cold, to quit the 

 rigours of northern latitudes. The species of our author performs 

 migrations northward to breed ; and in Great Britain, at the commence- 

 ment of winter, we have a regular accession to the numbers of our own 

 gold-crest. If we examine their size, strength, and powers of flight, we 

 must view the extent of their journeys with astonishment ; they are 

 indeed often so much exhausted, on their first arrival, as to be easily 

 taken, and many sometimes even perish with the fatigue. A remarkable 

 instance of a large migration is related by Mr Selby as occurring on the 

 coast of Northumberland in 1822, when the sandhills and links were 

 perfectly covered with them. 



" On the 24th and 25th of October 1822, after a very severe gale, with 

 thick fog, from the northeast (but veering, towards its conclusion, to the 

 east and south of east), thousands of these birds were seen to arrive upon 

 the seashore and sandbanks of the Northumbrian coast ; many of them 

 so fatigued by the length of their flight, or perhaps by the unfavourable 

 shift of wind, as to be unable to rise again from the ground, and great 

 numbers were in consequence caught or destroyed. This flight must 

 have been immense in quantity, as its extent was traced through the 

 whole length of the coasts of Northumberland and Durham. There 

 appears little doubt of this having been a migration from the more nor- 

 thern provinces of Europe (probably furnished by the pine forests of 

 Norway, Sweden, &c), from the circumstance of its arrival being simul- 

 taneous with that of large flights of the woodcock, fieldfare, and red- 

 wing. Although I had never before witnessed the actual arrival of the 



* There is a curious structure in the covering of the nostrils in most birds ; 

 where there is any addition to the horny substance, it is composed either of fine 

 bristles or hairs, or of narrow feathers closely spread together. In the gold- 

 crests it consists of a single plumelet on each side, the webs diverging widely. 



