Of all our lane-haunting birds, perhaps none rejoices more in tangled hedges than the tiny wren; and, as this green retreat our good fortune has led us into has long been innocent of shears and pruning-hooks, there are plenty of the small round things popping in and out of the hawthorn bushes each side of us. What a restless mite it is, our Jenny Wren!—now hopping, or creeping, rather, more like a mouse than a bird, through the innermost twigs; now pausing, tail erect, to have a fleeting peep at us; now off again into cover; now, with much fluttering of wing, crossing the lane, and again disappearing, its course only traceable by the trembling leaves; now on a topmost twig, trilling forth its sweet though simple lay. And what a quaint little object it is, as it sings there on its slender perch!—its round, brown-speckled body bent saucily forward, its tail cocked up as usual, and its wings drooping, so as to be ready to drop into the hedge the moment it thinks it has sung to us long enough. Its notes seem to us all the sweeter, because most of our singing birds-having emptied their souls of all their music, or overcome, perhaps, by the heat of summer—"lie entranced in drowsy lethargy." The nightingale and blackcap, with the rest of our woodland warblers, have all but ceased their minstrelsy. But the little wren, like the redbreast, still sings on. True, the autumnal moult is fast approaching, when the wren, too, will be silent, as well as the robin; but wait a month or so, and we shall hear these sweet vocalists singing again—the wren loud and blithe as ever, and our darling robin the same sweet rich plaintive strain which charmed us in the spring and in the chill days of winter.
Source: The Illustrated London News, July 8, 1882, p.47