128 
GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. 
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 the 
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 j; 
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 commencement 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 25tli 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 sea- j 
shore and sand-banks 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 conse- 
quence caught or destroyed. This flight must have been immense in quantity, 
as its extent was traced through the whole length of the coasts of Northumber- 
land and Durham. There appears little doubt of this having been a migration 
from the more northern provinces of Europe, (probably furnished by the pine 
forests of Norway, Sweden, &e.) from the circumstance of its arrival being 
simultaneous with that of large flights of the Woodcock, Fieldfare, and Red- 
wing. Although I had never before witnessed the actual arrival of the Gold- 
crested. Regulus, I had long felt convinced, from the great and sudden increase 
of the species during the autumnal and hyemal months, that our indigenous 
birds must be augmented by a body of strangers, making these shores their 
winter’s resort. 
“ A more extraordinary circumstance in the economy of this bird took place 
during the same winter, ( Memoirs of Wernerian Society , vol. v. p. 397,) viz. 
* There is a curious structure in the covering of the nostrils in most birds ; where there 
is any in 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. 
