696 
BIED-LIFE. 
It is needless for me to describe this bird, as every one 
knows him from earliest childhood, and has seen him 
hundreds of times gliding through the bushes as quick as 
any mouse, ever joyous, ever moving, always ready for a 
song, cheery and happy. He often comes into the farm¬ 
yard, perches himself on some prominent point, and sings 
a few rapid strophes; in an instant he vanishes from 
sight, but only to repeat the same manoeuvre as quickly 
elsewhere. Such is his life day by day, and from year’s 
end to year’s end ! 
Most assuredly every one knows our little friend by 
sight, or from his song, or by tradition. Popular poetry 
sings his praises in a hundred ways. In my native land 
we call him the “ Snow King,”—who could not under¬ 
stand this title ! A king in the snow—a king indeed— 
even when the bitter winter covers his table with a snow- 
wreath and hides his very food from sight; a king, I say 
again, and a rich one too, because his happy nature lets 
him sing and rejoice over the little that is left him! 
The literature of our land is replete with poems in his 
praise, singing of his sociability towards the human race, 
his contented and joyous nature. 
The Wren lives in pairs, almost all over Europe. In 
Germany it is always to be met with in thick hedges, or 
water-courses roughly clad with roots and bushes. The 
density of its plumage enables the bird to defy the utmost 
cold, and it is only when a very deep snow deprives it of 
nourishment that it falls a victim to the vicissitudes of 
the winter season. It lives principally on or near the 
ground, running like a mouse, and creeping through the 
hedges while capturing its food with the greatest activity : 
this chiefly consists of insects and their larvae and eggs, 
which it picks dexterously from out of cracks and crevices 
