Perching Birds. 
47 
THE 
GOLD-CRESTS. 
Family 
REGULIDJE. 
It is a bird of retired and skulking habits, and it lives entirely in the reed-beds, 
where it feeds on insects and tiny mollusca, as well as on the seeds of the reeds 
themselves. The nest is placed low down in a clump of rushes, and is rather a 
deeply made structure of flat grass, lined with down. The eggs are from four to 
seven in number, white, with dots and streaks of dark brown. 
The Gold-Crests are among the smallest of known birds, and 
are found only in the temperate portions of the Old and New 
Worlds, occurring as far south as the Himalayas in the former, 
and in Central America in the latter. They have all a beautiful 
crown of orange, yellow, or red, more or less concealed by the 
lateral feathers of the head. 
The Common Gold-Crest ( Regulus regains). This is the resident species in 
Great Britain, and is found everywhere, excepting in the northern islands of Scot- 
land, while a large migration from Northern Europe occurs annually, and a 
corresponding wave of returning 
migrants is often noticed in spring. 
How such a tiny and fragile little 
bird accomplishes these long dis- 
tances of flight is one of the puzzles 
of nature, and the migration is often 
performed in daylight, as I have seen 
myself in Heligoland, while that it 
travels also by night is shewn by its 
appearance in numbers at the light- 
houses, and also by a curious in- 
stance which occurred at the end of 
October, 1897, when a gentleman 
brought to the National History Museum a live Gold-Crest, which had flown at ten 
o’clock on the preceding night into the top-most carriage of the gigantic wheel at the 
Earl's Court Exhibition. It was by watching this interesting little captive that I was 
enabled to see that the orange crest is not displayed as a rule, but is kept concealed 
by the feathers on each side of the crown. 
The nest is made of green moss, lined with feathers, and is slung, hammock-like, 
under the branch of a fir or yew, and the young, when fully fledged, sit in a row on 
some adjoining fruit tree, being fed in turn by the industrious little parent birds, 
and the clamour made by the nestlings is something quite remarkable. The eggs 
are trom five to eight in number, creamy white or isabelline in colour, usually with a 
distinct zone of reddish-brown around the larger end of the egg. 
The Fire-Crest [Regulus ignicapillus). This species is an inhabitant of Central 
and Southern Europe, extending as far north as the Baltic Provinces, but not 
nesting in Scandinavia. It is only a winter visitant to Great Britain, and never 
The Fire-Crest. 
The Gold-Crest 
