Wren. The diminutive character of this bird is noticed in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 1, song):
“The wren with little quill.”
In “Macbeth” (iv. 2), Lady Macbeth says:
“the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.”
Considering, too, that as many as sixteen young ones have been found in this little bird’s nest, we can say with Grahame, in his poem on the birds of Scotland:
“But now behold the greatest of this train
Of miracles, stupendously minute;
The numerous progeny, claimant for food
Supplied by two small bills, and feeble wings
Of narrow range, supplied—ay, duly fed—
Fed in the dark, and yet not one forgot.”
The epithet “poor,” applied to the wren by Lady Macbeth, was certainly appropriate in days gone by, when we recollect how it was cruelly hunted in Ireland on St. Stephen’s day—a practice which prevailed also in the Isle of Man.[340]
FOOTNOTES:
[152] See Harland and Wilkinson’s “Lancashire Folk-Lore,” 1867, pp. 116-121; “Notes and Queries,” 1st series, vol. viii. p. 224; “Penny Cyclopædia,” vol. vii. p. 206, article “Cirripeda.”
[153] Nares’s “Glossary,” 1872, vol. i. p. 56.