FOOD OF SMALL BIRDS. 
118 
deed it is marvellous how any of the. insectivorous birds, 
that pass their winter with us, are supplied with food 
during inclement seasons, unless they have greater 
powers of abstinence than we are aware of : but our 
small birds are generally much more active than those 
of a larger bulk; the common wren is all animation, its 
actions and movements bespeak hilarity and animal 
spirits ; and that minute creature, too, the golden-crest- 
ed wren, is always in motion, flitting from the yew hedge 
to the fir, or darting away to taller trees with a spring 
and a power we could not expect from its size. These 
muscular exertions must greatly counteract the effects 
of seasons, and enable these atoms of animals to sup- 
port so cheerfully and gaily the winters of our climate. 
But in truth this tom-tit perishes in severe winters in 
great numbers. It roosts under the eaves of our hay- 
stacks, and in little holes of the mows, where we often 
find it dead, perished by cold or hunger, or conjointly 
by both ; yet the race survives, and this annual waste 
is recruited by the prolificacy of the creature, the nest 
of which will frequently contain from seven to nine 
young ones. Its chief subsistence is insects, which it 
hunts out with unwearied perseverance. It peeps into 
the nail-holes of our walls, which, though closed by the 
cobweb, will not secrete the spider within ; and draws 
out the chrysalis of the cabbage butterfly from the 
chinks in the barn : but a supply of such food is pre- 
carious, and becomes exhausted. It then resorts to our 
yards, and picks diminutive morsels from some rejected 
bone, or scraps from the butcher’s stall : yet this is the 
result of necessity, not choice ; for no sooner is other 
food attainable, than it retires to its woods and thickets. 
In summer it certainly will regale itself with our garden 
pease, and shells a pod of marrowfats with great dex- 
terity ; but this, we believe, is the extent of its crimi- 
nality. Yet for this venial indulgence do we proscribe 
it, rank it with vermin, and set a price upon its head, 
giving four-pence for the dozen, probably the ancient 
payment when the groat was a coin. However power- 
ful the stimulus was then, we yet find it a sufficient in- 
