2IO 



THE (HIDE TO NATURE 



Curious Place for Wren's Nest. 



BY JULIE ADAMS POWELL, STAMFORD, 

 CONN. 



It is well known that the wren is a 

 most persistent little bird. If she makes 

 up her mind to build in a certain place 

 it is almost impossible to dislodge her. 



Early this spring, a pair of wrens tried 

 to build in the rolled up piazza screen. 

 They carried their sticks and feathers 

 into one end. and three times I was 

 obliged to unroll the screen and shake out 

 the beginnings of a home, before the 

 little brown songsters understood fully 

 that this was not the proper place for 

 them. 



A few days later another pair of 



wrens, or it may have been the same pair, 

 succeeded in building their nest and lay- 

 ing three eggs in the sleeve of an old gar- 

 ment, which was left hanging on the line. 

 The house boy, without knowing that 

 there was a family residing in the gar- 

 ment, decided one day that it had been 

 there long enough, and so he carried it 

 to the kitchen, carelessly threw it over 

 the back of the chair, when the discovery 

 of nest and eggs was made. 



I carefully carried the garment back to 

 the line, and tried to arrange it as the 

 birds had left it, and then took a picture 

 of it. The wrens did not return. 



Last summer a pair of these little birds 

 built a nest in a small watering pot which 

 hung in the shed, and therein raised a 

 merry family of youngsters. 



One day I saw that a wren's nest 

 had been built in the tin leader, which 

 conducted the water from the roof. A 

 few days later I was glad to note that the 

 nest had been deserted, as we had had a 

 severe shower in the interval. It was 

 well that no eggs had been laid. In the 

 trees of the old apple orchard opposite 

 my home, I discovered six wrens' nests 

 in the small holes of the limbs this sea- 

 son which have not been enlarged by the 

 flickers. One tree was occupied by a 

 wren on one side and by an English spar- 

 row on the other. 



A WREN'S NEST IN THE SLEEVE OF AN OLD 



GARMENT. 

 The eggs can be seen beneath the shadow of the cloth. 



A Pet Burrowing Owl. 



BY HATTIE WASHBURN, GOODWIN, S. D. 



While driving across the prairie one 

 chill, desolate day late in autumn, I saw 

 a burrowing owl running before my 

 horse and dragging a broken wing. I 

 alighted and drove him into the rank 

 weeds at the roadside where he turned 

 at bay with fiercely glaring eyes. I 

 stooped to pick him up when uttering 

 a succession of sounds not unlike the 

 alarm of a small clock, with a sudden 



