In Ireland every Wren that can be seen is hunted down and killed on St. Stephen’s Day; and a Surrey man tells me that up to twenty-five years ago he has witnessed the same persecution in the home counties. Tradition says that it is due in Ireland to the fact of a party of Wrens hopping over a drum’s head, and thereby disturbing a sentinel, when a party of Irish were on the point of surprising their enemies. Shakespeare writes of “the Wren with little quill,” in Bottom’s song of birds; and again, in “Cymbeline,” Imogen says, “if there be yet left in Heaven as small a drop of pity as a Wren’s eye.” The comparisons drawn by old-fashioned country folk are often very quaint. I remember an old lady who, if she were asked to take more of some dish at table, often said, “Just a bit the size of a bee’s knee,” to the great edification of us youngsters. The song of the Wren is always the same: a few separate notes, a trill, a rattle and a trill, while its call-note has been likened to the clicking of a watch while it is being wound up. There is no more winsome picture of bird-life than this tiny creature dotting about, with little tail erect and fan-like, in quest of its insect food among the dry bramble leaves, so vivacious in its movements that no camera could ever do it justice. The Wren is almost the smallest of European birds. There is not much to be said about the colouring of its feathers, which are the brown of the tree trunks, with beautiful thick oblique stripes of a darker shade. The colour is lighter over the eyes, on throat and breast. The tail feathers are especially fine, and thickly striped. The beak is slightly depressed, fine and sharp as a needle; the brown legs relatively strong. The nest is placed under the cover of felled boughs, between roots, in secluded corners of abandoned huts, which it can slip into. The nest is comparatively large, with a spacious entrance, and consists of a foundation of leaves and fine twigs, within which is a layer of moss, and again within that a mass of smooth, finely broken feathers. The clutch is six, sometimes, but rarely, eight small white eggs, with fine blood-red speckles. [Illustration: 1. Wren’s Egg. 2. Great Bustard’s Egg. Comparative sizes.] [Illustration: DOUBTFUL. THE HAWFINCH.] THE HAWFINCH. (_Coccothraustes vulgaris._) This is not a true migrant, for it is only in severe winters that it seeks a warmer climate. In autumn it comes from the hills, down into the plain, to the neighbourhood of human habitations, where it leads a restless life. It is timid, and easily startled; while flying it utters its shrill cry “_seu, seu, seu_.” The striking bulk of its beak indicates the strength it has to use in obtaining its food; and it is so, for the kernels of the hardest cherry stones are its favourite dainty.