THE WRENS 



421 



wren progenitors were normally polygamous. That house 

 wrens, and possibly others, still are iiolygamous when op- 

 portunity affords we now have considerable proof {IhhI. ). 



The irrepressible energy of the wrens likewise shows 

 itself in the size of their families, for the eggs usually 

 number six to eight instead of the three or four of most 

 birds. They vary in color, with the different species, 

 from the pure white ones of the short-billed marsh wren 

 to those of the long-billed species which are so thickly 

 speckled as to appear almost brown. 



Wrens are almost entirely insecti\'oruus birds, show- 

 ing but little selection in the "bugs'' they eat so long as 

 they are sufficiently abundant to satisfy their insatiable 

 appetites and those of their numerous young. How plen- 



CHIPS FROM THE OLD BLOCK 



Impatient and fretful — young wrens insist on being fed over .SOO times a day, 

 and one case is on record of a family whichwtsfed 1217 times in one day. 



tiful insects must be in order to maintain a wren family 

 and how many pests are destroyed by these birds, one is 

 better able to judge after watching the parent birds feed 

 their young. It is by no means exceptional for them to 

 feed their young from 500 td 700 times a day, while one 

 instance is on record (see The .Ink, Januarx', 1917) of 

 a single male wren (the feriiale having been killed) which 

 fed its young 1217 tinies during the fifteen hours and 

 forty-five minutes of daylight. 



There is but one blot on the name of the wren family: 

 they are exceedingly mischievous. This sometimes results 

 in disaster to their neighbors. I have seen a long-billed 

 marsh wren, for example, perch on the edge of a red- 



winged blackbird's nest and deliberately peck holes in 

 the eggs. I have found the eggs of Virginia and Sora 

 rails with similar holes punched in them, and Dr. Chap- 

 man, in his charming book, "Bird Studies with a Cam- 

 era," tells of watching a marsh wren, in a similar way, 

 destroying the eggs of a least bittern. The familiar little 



GETTING RE.\DY FOR SUMMER 



Much skill and ingenuity are often required to get some of the larger sticks into 

 the box, yet the house wrens persist in using just such materials. 



house wren, likewise, sometimes indulges this egg-de- 

 stroying habit. I once watched a male house wren go 

 from the box where he was nesting to one occupied by 

 a house sparrow, disappear for a moment, and then 

 come out with a sparrow's egg in his bill. This he dropped 

 and watched it fall until it broke on a porch roof below. 

 He then dodged back into the nest and repeated the 

 performance until all five eggs lay in fragments, when 

 he Hew to the nearest branch and burst into a triumphant 

 song. 



If the wrens practised this habit on house sparrows 

 alone, we could only praise them, but, unfortunately, 

 almost any other birds, particularly hole-nesting species, 

 nesting in the near \icinity are likely to be treated in 

 the same wa_\-. It is almost useless to try to attract other 

 fiirds or to jnit up bird houses within fifty feet of a box 

 occupied by wrens. Wrens and bluebirds seem bitterest 

 enemies, and where they do nest fairly close together the 

 bkiebird is ever on the alert to chase the wren. 



The house zvren is the commonest and most widely 

 di.^tributed of all the wrens, some form of it being found 

 throughout North and South America from Quebec to 

 \i-gentina. It is uniform dark brown above, faintly 



