70 



a higher location. They are most indefatigable insect hunters, and should be 

 encouraged to build in every garden. All that is necessary is to furnish them 

 with a small box having a hole about one and one-half inches in diameter. Nail 

 this up to a fence, about eight or ten feet from the ground, so that eats cannot 

 get at it; and if any Wrens come that way in the spring they are almost sure to 

 take possession of it, and having once occupied it, they will in all probability return 

 every year. The domestic cat is their worst enemy, and they seem to know it, for 

 as soon as they catch a sight of one of these detested creatures they start such a 

 scolding that they arouse the whole feathered tribe in their neighbourhood. In 

 the autumn they eat a few elderberries, but this is the only vegetable food I have 

 known them to take. 



The number of times House Wrens feed their young in the course of a day 

 has several times been carefully noted. In one case it was found that the young 

 were fed from thirty to forty times every hour, and it must be remembered that 

 the old birds usually carry to their young on each visit not one insect only, but a 

 beak full. 



WREN'S. 



Description. 



LONG-BILLED MARSH WREN. 



Crown, brown; a white line over eye; back black, streaked with white; rump 

 cinnamon brown; wings and tail barred with blackish; under parts white. 



L., 4.75; W., 1.85; T., 1.75. 



Nest, globular, attached to flags or rushes in a marsh. Eggs, five or six, pale 

 brownish grey, so thickly speckled with minute chocolate dots as to appear almost 

 entirely of that colour. . - 



SHORT-BILLED MARSH WREN. 



Dark brown above, everywhere streaked with black, white, and huffy; wings 

 and tail barred; under parts white, washed on the breast, sides and under tail 

 coverts with buffy. 



L, 4.25; W., 1.75; T., 1.50. 



Nest, globular, in tall grass in low meadows. Eggs, five or six, white. 



WINTER WREN. 



Above dark brown ; wings and tail barred ; a whitish superciliary line ; under 

 parts pale brown, the lower breast, sides and belly, more or less heavily barred 

 with blackish. 



L, 4.00; W., 2.00.; T., 1.25. 



Nest, usually globular, among the roots of a fallen tree, or in a brush heap. 

 Eggs, five or six, creamy white, spotted with reddish brown. 



HOUSE WREN. 



Upper parts brown, brighter on rump and tail; back with fine indistinct bars: 

 wings and tail finely barred : sides and flanks with many dark bars, other under 

 parts whitish. 



Nest, in a hole or crevice, commonly in a bird box. Eggs, six to eight, white, 

 thickly speckled with reddish brown. 



