Birds and their nests

by Mary Howitt

For ever and aye;

Oh, I do love to stay

Alone in wood so gay!

The Bird’s Ditty.

“This little bird appears to feel all that strength of heart, and to put it into its little ditty, which seems to me to say—

“Here I continue ‘cheery cheery, and still shall, and still shall!’”

CHAPTER XII.

THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN.

We have here the Golden-crested Wren—the Regulus cristatus of naturalists—the tiniest of our British birds, “the pleasing fairy-bird,” as Bewick calls it, one of the large family of warblers, and a near relation to Jenny Wren. It is a very charming little bird, with a sweet melodious song of its own, and so many curious little ways that it is well worth everybody’s notice and everybody’s love.