crested Wren, the subject of the present notice, has a soft
and pleasing song. Pennant says lie has observed this
bird suspended in the air for a considerable time o\ei a
bush in flower, while it sang very melodiously; but tliis
peculiarity does not seem to have been noticed by other
naturalists. The song may be commonly heard in spring,
but the bird being generally among the tree-tops, its actual
position cannot thereby be easily discovered, and its voice not
being very strong, one must be advantageously placed to hear
it in perfection. I t is most frequently to be observed in fir-
plantations, where it may be seen, all life and activity,
flitting from branch to branch, clinging to the leaves in
various attitudes, often with its back downwards, and eagerly
engaged seeking various insects or their hidden larvae,
occasionally, it is said, eating also a few seeds or small
berries. The Golden-crested Wren is a very social bird, and
except at the season of reproduction is almost always to be
observed in companies, each consisting to all appearance ol
a family-party, the members of which keep together by
repeatedly answering one another’s call as they rove from
tree to tree, iu quest of their food. This call-note is faint
and has been compared to that of the Treecreeper, which
not unfrequently accompanies the busy band. Though the
species, as will presently be shewn, is greatly subject to the
migratory influence, it occurs in this country all the year
round; and is even observed to be sometimes more numerous
in winter than in summer, many arriving here late
in autumn from colder northern regions, and braving the
severity of our winters. It is among the earliest breeders in
spring, the song of the male being frequently heard by the
end of February. The nest is generally placed under a
branch of a fir, yew or cedar, near the end of the bough,
being supported by two or three of the laterally diverging
and pendant twigs, which are interwoven with the materials
of which the outside is principally composed. The nest
thus sheltered by the fir-branch above it, as shewn in the
next vignette, is built of the softest moss, thickly felted with
wool and spiders’ webs intermixed with a few grasses and
dead leaves, and is lined with a quantity of small feathers *;
both for security and architecture, it is one of the prettiest
examples to be found among the structures of our indigenous
birds. But instances are known in which it has been built
upon the upper surface of a branch, and Mr. Hewitson has
seen it placed against the trunk of a tree upon the base of
a diverging branch, and again in the middle of a low juniper
little more than a foot from the ground. So confident and
bold is the female when sitting on her nest, as to allow very
close observation without flying off. She lays from six to
ten eggs, generally of a pale ochraceous-white, mottled or
suffused, especially at the larger end, with light reddish-
brown ; but sometimes they are quite white and occasionally
of a uniform brownish-yellow; while Mr. Hewitson mentions
a nest in which they resembled those of the Mallow-Wren,
being sparingly spotted with red-brown. They measure
from -56 to -5 by from -41 to -38 in. Montagu, who timed
the visit of a female to her brood of eight nestlings which
he kept in his room, found that she came once in each
minute and a half or two minutes, or, upon an average,
thirty-six times in an h o u r; and this continued full sixteen
hours in a day. The male would not venture into the room ;
yet the female would feed her young while the nest was
held in the hand. Selby says, that he has known the young
to be fully fledged as early as the third week of April.
The Golden-crested Wren is distributed generally over
the whole of the British Islands, and appears to breed
regularly where it occurs, except in the Outer Hebiides,
Orkney and Shetland. Though resident with us as a species
throughout the whole year, the fact is now established on the
fullest evidence that in autumn vast flights of this biid come
to some part or other of our coast, and its return-migiation
in spring has been observed by Mr. Gray. Selby was the
first to notice the movement, and called attention to it in
1824 (Mem. Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc. v. p. 397). Having
* Thompson, on the authority of two friends, says that these materials are
sometimes stolen from the nest of the Chaffinch.