Willow wren

“ It may be remarked in passing that the powers of flight held in reserve by these smaller Warblers are extraordinary. This fact is occasionally illustrated in a most surprising manner by the Willow-Wren. Just after their arrival in the spring (possibly when only the males are about) . Willow- Wrens are exceedingly pugnacious, and one may sometimes be seen to take up a position on a post, or in the lower branches of a tree, and from there to make fierce sallies upon any bird not larger than a Finch that happens to be flying by ”

“ If by chance you find a country-man who knows the bird, and has a name for it, this will be one which is applied indiscriminately to two, three, or four species. The willow wren, in fact, is one of those little birds that are "seen rather than distinguished," on account of its small size, modest colouring, and its close resemblance to other species of warblers; also on account of the quiet, gentle character of its song, which is little noticed in the spring and summer concert of loud, familiar voices. ”

“ Willow Warbler, "Willow Wren."—In Spring, two solitary Willow Wrens killed at Rhinns of Islay. "Great numbers of different kinds of Wrens on 11th May at Corsewall" [Please send wings. We have only one true Wren in Britain. The Goldcrest and Willow "Wrens" (sic) belong to the Warbler group.—J. A. H.-B.]
No records again till September, from 5th to 22d. Goldcrests are given on nine dates; but very few at Rhinns of Islay, Turnberry, Corsewall, and Little Ross.
Many entries in October. A "great flock" of Goldcrests at Little Ross; many struck and killed. ”

“ White calls the smallest Willow-wren, or Chiff-chaff, makes its appearance very early in the spring, 44 and is very common with us, but I cannot make out the three different species of Willow-wrens, which he says he has discovered.’ [13] Nothing but a personal acquaintance—a friendship, as I must call it in my own case—with these little birds, as they live their every-day life among us, will suffice to fix the individuality of each species in the mind; not even the best plates in a book, or the faded and lifeless figures in a museum. ”

“ The Willow Warbler is much more generally distributed than the last-named bird; but it is possible that it is considered commoner from the difference in the haunts of the two species—the Wood Warbler, as already remarked, keeping further away from habitations. As a rule, the Willow Wren arrives in this country about the end of the first week in April—that is to say, before the Wood Warbler, 25 but not so early as the Chiff-chaff, which is the first of the genus to appear. ”

“ The Willow Wren is closely allied to the Chiffchaff and so like it in general appearance as to need a critical examination, when dead, to enable it to be recognised. In habits also there is little difference to be noted. Its range is more extensive, for as far north as the birch woods extend, this hardy little wanderer makes his home, retiring at the end of summer to Southern Europe and Africa. Throughout our islands it is extremely common. ”

“ That evening for the first time Adeline weakened, and the two went out in the garden again. Now the roses were gone, but the scent of the box endured under a clear sky, through which the great lustre of the moon floated. They sat down in the summer-house again, and Elias laid his hand resolutely on the girl's.
“Now you must tell me,” said he. “I know a good deal already. You have shunned me because of the willow-ware. Why? What has a set of blue and white china's disappearance to do with you and me?” ”

“ The power of the woman was upon him; meek and dazed as a tired babe he lay upon the twisted withies; he heard the sound of the twigs as she twisted them in and out in her weaving. He could neither move nor speak; he wondered dreamily whether he lay in a trance or swoon, or whether this was death, and thus the problem of his vanishing was solved without effort of his own. He felt either the light cold touch of her finger tip or the touch of a willow withy between his brows. Suddenly, how and when he did not know, he saw that other country of which the Willow-weaver spake ”

“ A troop of young Wrens just out of the nest is a cunning sight. The anxious parents counsel flight and the more circumspect of the brood obey, but now and then one less sophisticated allows a little pleasant talk, “blarney,” to quiet his beating heart. Then a little titillation [315] of the crown feathers will quite win him over, so that he will accept a gently insistent finger in place of the twig which has been his support. The unfaltering trust of childhood has subdued many a savage heart, but when it is exemplified in a baby Wren one feels the ultimate appeal to tenderness. ”

“ Willowes would say: ‘Now, play nicely with Laura. She has fed your rabbits every day while you have been at school. But don’t let her fall into the pond.’
Henry and James did their best to observe their mother’s bidding. When Laura went too near the edge of the pond one or the other would generally remember to call her back again; and before they returned to the house, Henry, as a measure of precaution, would pull a wisp of grass and wipe off any tell-tale green slime that happened to be on her slippers. But nice play with a sister so much younger than themselves was scarcely possible. ”

“ All of the willows have long, slender leaves. Each leaf is a narrow, thin, delicately veined blade that grows by itself, and alternately, along a slender stem, making a sort of feathered branch. The pussy willow leaves are a bright green. The black willow leaf is broader, saw-notched, and it tapers toward both stem and tiplike a canoe. It is bright green above and silvery underneath. The leaf of the white willow is a gray green lined with silver, and it droops from yellow stems. The crack willow, whose twigs snap so easily, has a green leaf lined with a waxy coating. ”

“ There is probably no tree that contributes so largely to the conveniences of English life as the Willow. Putting aside its uses in the manufacture of gunpowder and cricket bats, we may safely say that the most scantily-furnished house can boast of some article of Willow manufacture in the shape of baskets. ”

“ The people are to be congratulated upon having so jolly and pretty a singer playing hide-and-seek—the wren’s game always—in their house-yards and caroling under their windows. As a musician he far outshines the more widely known house wren, though that bird, too, is excellent company, with his pert ways, at once furtive and familiar, and his merry gurgle of a tune. If he would only come back to our sparrow-cursed Massachusetts gardens and orchards, as I still hope he will some time do, I for one would never twit him upon his inferiority to his Bewickian cousin or to anybody else. ”

“ The Willowes tradition was very intolerant of pease under its mattress.
Though she tried to think clearly about the situation—grapple, she remembered, had been Caroline's unpleasantly strenuous word—her attention kept sidling off to other things: the sudden oblique movements of the water-drops that glistened on the cabbage leaves, or the affinity between the dishevelled brown hearts of the sunflowers and Mrs. Leak's scrubbing-brush, propped up an the kitchen window-sill. It must have rained heavily during the night. The earth was moist and swelled, and the air so fresh that it made her yawn. ”

“ In their natural condition Willows are graceful and picturesque, but a large number of the examples met with in our rambles have been so altered for commercial reasons as to be more grotesque than beautiful. It is not the timber-man who is responsible this time, for a pollard Willow, though it produces a shock-head of long slender shoots, suitable for basket-rods, lets in moisture at the top of the bole, and the wood is more or less decayed and worthless. ”

“ Pierre, the first born, was now old enough to fly, but timidly stayed in the nest. Mrs. Wren noted with great anxiety that no sooner did she leave the tin-pot but up popped six little heads, and out upon a curious world gazed twelve little bead-like eyes.
"Do be good children while I am gone," she would entreat, when ready for market, "do keep your heads inside of the house. Pierre, put your head down in the nest instantly, do you hear me!" and little Mrs. Wren would stand on the edge of the tin-pot and fussily cry krup, up, up, which in Wren language means, you naughty, naughty, birds. ”

“ Once, as they stood on the ridge that guarded the valley from the south-east, he said: ‘I should like to stroke it’—and he waved his hand towards the pattern of rounded hills embossed with rounded beech-woods. She felt a cold{160} shiver at his words, and turned away her eyes from the landscape that she loved so jealously. Titus could never have spoken so if he had not loved it too. Love it as he might, with all the deep Willowes love for country sights and smells, love he never so intimately and soberly, his love must be a horror to her. It was different in kind from hers. ”

“ I mean the most common kind to be found in the northern States—the kind that stands beside the roadside watering-trough. The impression is common that willows will thrive only in wet places. It is true that a willow is very comfortable in places where many other trees will suffer from wet feet; yet it will give good results elsewhere. It is reasonable to suppose that poor soil goes with a poor school [444] building, and a refined tree would probably find life hard in such a place. I should certainly plant a willow in such cases. It will thrive where a goat can, and where a sheep cannot. ”

“ Yet the wren is a hardy little bird, a resident all the year round in the coldest parts of our country, and one of the few songsters which may be heard in all seasons. Even during a frost, if the sun shines, the wren will sing as gaily as in summer. His song is his greatest charm. It is unlike that of any other British melodist—a loud, bright lyric, the fine, clear, high-pitched notes and trills issuing in a continuous rapid stream from beginning to end. ”

“ She called Everard Vaterlein, she taught Laura to dance the cake-walk, she taught Mrs. Bonnet to make petits canapés à l’Impératrice; having failed to teach Brewer how to make a rock garden, she talked of making one herself; and though she would have liked old oak better, she professed herself enchanted by the Willowes walnut and mahogany. So assiduously did this pretty young person seek to please that Laura and Everard would have been churlish had they not responded to her blandishments. Each, indeed, secretly wondered what James could see in any one so showy and dashing as Sibyl. ”

“ The Willowes obstinacy, which had for so long kept unchanged the home in Dorset, was now to transfer that home across the county border. The old house was sold, and the furniture and family belongings were installed at Lady Place. Several strings of Emma’s harp were broken, some feathers were jolted out of Ratafee’s tail,{11} and Mrs. Willowes, whose upbringing had been Evangelical, was distressed for several Sundays by the goings-on that she found in Salome’s prayer-book. But in the main the Willowes tradition stood the move very well. ”

“ Mr. Willowes, coming home from the brewery through a sunset haze of midges, chanced to stroll into the orchard to see if the rabbits had barked any more of his saplings. There he found Laura, sitting contentedly in hayband fetters, and singing herself a story about a snake that had no mackintosh. Mr. Willowes was extremely vexed when he understood from Laura’s nonchalant account what had happened. He took off her slippers and chafed her feet. Then he carried her indoors to his study, giving orders that a tumbler of hot sweet lemonade should be prepared for her immediately. ”

“ These are the smallest of the Wrens, being but four inches in length; they have a very short tail which, like those of the others, is carried erect over the back during excitement or anger. They are very sly birds and creep about through stone walls and under brush like so many mice; they have a sweet song but not as loud as that of the House Wren. Their nests are placed in crevices of stumps, walls, old buildings or in brush heaps, being made of twigs and leaves, lined with feathers. Their eggs, which are laid during May or June, are pure white, finely and sparingly dotted with reddish brown ”

“ The true story of the Wren is simple enough. It is a minute bird of unpretending plumage, distinguished easily by its erect tail and its habit of hiding in bushes and hedges, not clinging like the Creeper to the perpendicular or horizontal bough of a tree, but hopping from twig to twig, and occasionally taking a short direct flight to another place of concealment, but rarely exposing itself by doing more than this. When hunting for its food, which is considered to be almost exclusively insects, it searches diligently holes and crannies of all kinds, and in all substances. ”

“ Four times a year Mrs. Willowes had visited the family burying place, and as a child Laura had counted it a solemn and delicious honour to accompany her upon these expeditions. In summer especially, it was pleasant to sit on the churchyard wall under the thick roof of lime trees, or to finger the headstones, now hot, now cold, while her mother went from grave to grave with her gauntlet gloves and her gardening basket. ”

“ I presumed that the thrush, at least, had a nest not far off, but after a little search (the mosquitoes were still active) I concluded not to intrude further on his domestic privacy. I had heard the wren's famous song, and it had not been over-praised. But then came the inevitable second thought: had I really heard it? True, the music possessed the wren characteristics, and a [Pg 148] winter wren was in the brush; but what proof had I that the bird and the song belonged together? No; I must see him in the act of singing. ”