COMMON WREN. 
371 
same hole, and thus keeping up the tempera- 
ture, and increasing their defence against the 
cold of winter. The holes in the eaves where 
sparrows have nestled are very frequently resorted 
to ; and in a frosty winter’s evening, eight or nine 
Wrens may be seen entering one of these retreats, 
hanging about the thatch, and clinging to the 
wall, before going to rest ; when all is quiet, and 
they have taken their places, the hand and arm 
introduced into the hole, will find them huddled 
together almost in a mass, surrounded by the 
feathers which the industry of the sparrows had 
collected in spring; and the degree of heat which 
is thus kept up is much greater than at first we 
would conceive that their small bulk could main- 
tain. 
Over each eye there is a pale streak ; the 
whole upper parts of the body are of a dull 
chestnut brown, of a redder tint on the tail 
coverts and rump, the whole indistinctly marked 
with bars of a darker shade ; the under parts are 
pale wood brown ; the wings are of a deeper 
shade than the back and upper parts, and are 
barred with black ; the tail somewhat similar in 
tint to its coverts, and barred with brownish 
black. The female does not differ, but is gene- 
rally somewhat less in size. 
Before leaving the tribe of Scansores, we have 
still another family to review shortly, that of the 
Cuculidce, or Cuckoos, of which, until lately, we 
possessed only a single example in the well 
