but they were hardly systematic enough to let one judge properly as to this. The wren, however, both in this respect and in its general façons d'agir, had a striking resemblance to the tree-creeper, with which bird—if I read the systematic tangle (I mean in print) aright—he is more closely related than are the tits.
"Howsoever these things be"—I fear I have dwelt too long upon them, but whole books are written upon a war or even a battle—the little tree-creeper is a very delightful bird to watch. Sometimes, on inclement winter days, one can come very near him, very near indeed, and almost forget the cold, the rain, the sleet, in his active busy little comfort. To see him then creeping like a feathered mouse over some stunted tree-trunk, and insinuating his slender, delicately-curved little bill into every chink and crevice of the bark—so busy, so happy, so daintily and innocently destructive! His head, which is as the sentient handle to a very delicate instrument, is moved with such science, such dentistry, that one feels and appreciates each turn of it, and, by sympathy, seems working oneself with a little probing sickle that is seen even when invisible, as is the fine wire or revolving horror in one's tooth, whilst sitting in the dreadful chair. After watching him thus—almost, sometimes, bending over him—I have broken off some pieces of bark, to form an idea of what he might be getting. A minute spider and a small chrysalis or two would be revealed, but there were, generally, many cocoon-webs of larger hybernating spiders, whilst empty pupa shells and other such debris suggested "pasture" sufficient to "lard" many
