I’m glad you’ve seen it, for you never Saw ought before so soft and clever. [Illustration] CHAPTER I. THE WREN. Truly the little Wren, so beautifully depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir, with her tiny body, her pretty, lively, and conceited ways, her short, little turned-up tail, and delicate plumage, is worthy of our tender regard and love. The colouring of the wren is soft and subdued—a reddish-brown colour; the breast of a light greyish-brown; and all the hinder parts, both above and below, marked with wavy lines of dusky-brown, with two bands of white dots across the wings. Its habits are remarkably lively and attractive. “I know no pleasanter object,” says the agreeable author of “British Birds,” “than the wren; it is always so smart and cheerful. In gloomy weather other birds often seem melancholy, and in rain the sparrows and finches stand silent on the twigs, with drooping wings and disarranged plumage; but to the merry little wren all weathers are alike. The big drops of the thunder-shower no more wet it than the drizzle of a Scotch mist; and as it peeps from beneath the bramble, or glances from a hole in the wall, it seems as snug as a kitten frisking on the parlour rug.” [Illustration: WRENS AND NEST. [Page 8. ] [Sidenote: _A Builder of Many Nests._] “It is amusing,” he continues, “to watch the motions of a young family of wrens just come abroad. Walking among furze, broom, or juniper, you are attracted to some bush by hearing issue from it the frequent repetition of a sound resembling the syllable _chit_. On going up you perceive an old wren flitting about the twigs, and presently a young one flies off, uttering a stifled _chirr_, to conceal itself among the bushes. Several follow, whilst the parents continue to flutter about in great alarm, uttering their _chit, chit_, with various degrees of excitement.”