WINTER WEEN. 141 



the three secondaries next the body; tips of the wings dusky ; throat, 

 line over the eye, sides of the neck, ear feathers and breast, dirty 

 white, with minute transverse touches of a drab or clay color ; sides 

 under the wings speckled with dark brown, black, and dirty white ; 

 belly and vent thickly mottled with sooty black, deep brown, and 

 pure white, in transverse touches ; tail very short, consisting of 

 twelve feathers, the exterior one on each side a quarter of an inch 

 shorter, the rest lengthening gradually to the middle ones ; legs and 

 feet a light clay color, and pretty stout; bill straight, slender, half 

 an inch long, not notched at the point, of a dark brown or black 

 above, and whitish below; nostril oblong; eye light hazel. The 

 female wants the points of white on the wing coverts. The food 

 of this bird is derived from that great magazine of so many of the 

 feathered race, insects and their larva^ particularly such as inhabit 

 watery places, roots of bushes and piles of old timber. 



It were much to be wished that the summer residence, nest and 

 eggs of this bird were precisely ascertained, which would enable us 

 to determine whether it be, what I strongly suspect it is, the same 

 species as the common domestic Wren of Britain. 



o o 



