Europe, and is able to maintain itself in cold | easily approached near enough to see its colours | 
countries throughout the winter. Its total length 
is rather less than four inches ; its general plu- 
mage has a brown colour, transversely striated 
with black ; its throat and the edge of its wing 
contain some white; and its tail is short and 
perked up. It builds in the corners of out- 
houses, in stacks of wood, or in holes of walls. 
Its nest is almost oval, and consists chiefly of 
moss lined with feathers. The eggs amount to 
from seven to ten, and are very small, and have a 
white colour, marked with a few red spots; and 
two broods are produced in the season. The 
common wren, besides being readily distinguish- 
able by its diminutive size and its perked up 
tail, may be easily known by its somewhat pe- 
culiar habits; for though it flits up and down 
among the branches of a hedge, it rarely runs up 
and around the trunk of a tree like the creeper, 
Certhia familiaris, nor does it usually get so high 
up as the tits, Parz, preferring the root-branches 
and those which hang over water, where gnats 
and other night-moving aquatic insects lodge in 
the day-time, overshadowed from the light. On 
these it banquets both in summer and in win- 
ter; and it may frequently be seen about hedges. 
barns, stables, farm-yards, walls, and piles of 
wood. It is said to eat small berries, such as 
those of the elder, and small seeds; but so long 
as it can find a gnat or a small beetle, it will 
rarely touch them. From its being a prolitic 
breeder, and its young, though so small, being vo- 
racious eaters, the wren must tend greatly to 
keep down the numbers of several sorts of de- 
structive insects, particularly in gardens and or- 
chards. 
The golden-crested wren, Regulus cristatus, is 
the smallest bird in Europe, and is not uncom- 
mon in many parts of Britain. It measures only 
33 inches in length, including the tail, which is 
Ii inch. It cannot be mistaken for any other 
bird, being of a greenish-yellow colour, while the 
common wren is rusty hrown; and though the 
chiff-chaff and the hay-bird are yellowish-green, 
neither of these has the golden yellow on the 
crown of the head, which at once distinguishes 
‘this pretty bird. A less conspicuous distinction 
is formed by two white bars, similar to those of 
the chaffinch, across the wings, caused by the 
greenish feathers of the wing-coverts being tipt 
with white. The gold-crested wren seems to de- 
light most in evergreen shrubs and trees, par- 
ticularly the spruce-fir and cedar; and it never 
fails to make daily excursions along the hedges 
in the vicinity, flitting about through the thick- 
est branches, and uttering its small tinkling 
| chirp of tee, tee, teehy, at every change of its posi- 
| tion. 
| proached, most probably owing to its being very 
It is not in the least afraid of being ap- 
near-sighted—a peculiarity of vision no doubt 
designed by Providence for enabling it the more 
readily to distinguish the minute insects on 
which it exclusively feeds. It may, indeed, be 
distinctly, or even to catch it with a fishing-rod 
tipt with bird-lime. In consequence of its mi- 
nute size, it is rather impatient of cold; yet it 
does not appear to migrate, except perhaps very 
partially, even in Scotland, where it remains 
during the severest winters—one or more fami- 
lies of the tiny little creatures keeping each 
other warm in cold frosty nights, by huddling 
together as closely as possible under the thickest 
branches of a spruce or silver fir, or of a furze or 
ivy bush. They are said, however, to migrate 
from Shetland and the Orkneys. It is not a lit- 
tle singular, that though they stand hard frost 
out of doors, yet exposure to frost kills them 
when tame, as if the protection of a house ren- 
dered them less hardy. They are greatly more 
abundant in Scotland than in England; and in 
some districts where fir-plantations have been 
made, they have multiplied prodigiously within 
the last half-century. No farmer will be apt to 
accuse them of injuring his crops; but when a 
gardener, unacquainted with their habits and 
food, sees them flitting about among his espaliers, 
his wall-trees, or his rose-bushes, he may think 
they are busy eating the blossom-buds, as some | 
other birds are well known to do, while they are 
really doing him essential benefit, by picking up 
every straggling aphis and bud-weevil which 
they can find. 
The wood-wren, Stvia sibilatriz, and the wil- 
low-wren or hay-bird, St/via itis, have a greenish- 
yellow colour, darkest on the back and wings, and 
lightest on the breast and belly; and are much 
brighter in their hues when young than when of | 
fullage. The former is 5§ inches long; and the 
latter is 5 inches, and has such an elegant form | 
and such pretty colouring as to be popularly de- | 
Both | 
are birds of passage, arriving in Britain late in | 
signated in Scotland “ the busket leddy.” 
April or early in May, and announcing their 
arrival by their pleasing notes,—those of the 
wood-wren being shrill, short, and hurried, ac- 
companied by a peculiar shaking of the wings,— 
those of the hay-bird consisting of a rather con- 
tinuous, soft, plaintive warble. The hay-bird 
uniformly lines its snug little nest with a profu- 
sion of loose feathers; the wood-wren, on the 
contrary, never uses feathers, but lines neatly 
with hair. The wood-wren is most frequently 
found among tall trees, and may occasionally be 
seen among “hedge-row elms,” as Milton calls 
them, and among other tall trees in hedges; but 
the hay-bird delights in small copsewood, and in 
what may well be termed copsewood hedges, so 
common in England,—yet is no less common in 
shrubberies and gardens, often building in the | 
strawberry beds,—for though it does not seem to | 
care about human neighbourhoods, being found | 
in the most wild and solitary places, it is by no 
means shy, and will not only allow itself to be 
approached almost as near as the gold-crest, but 
will even make its way into greenhouses, and, 
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