240 THE INVITATION. 



Atlantic States, namely, the cat-bird and the long- 

 tailed or ferruginous thrush. 



The wrens are a large and interesting family, and 

 as songsters are noted for vivacity and volubility 

 The more common species are the house-wren, the 

 wood-wren, the marsh-wren, the great Carolina wren, 

 and the winter-wren, the latter perhaps deriving its 

 name from the fact that it breeds in the North. It is 

 an exquisite songster, and pours forth its notes so 

 rapidly and with such sylvan sweetness and cadence, 

 that it seems to go off like a musical alarm. 



Wilson called the kinglets wrens, but they have 

 little to justify the name, except their song, which is 

 of the same continuous, gushing, lyrical character as 

 that referred to above. Dr. Brewer was entranced 

 with the song of one of these tiny minstrels in the 

 woods of New Brunswick, and thought he had found 

 the author of the strain in the black-poll warbler. 

 He seems loath to believe that a bird so small as either 

 of the kinglets could possess such vocal powers. It 

 may indeed have been the winter-wren, but from my^ 

 own obsar/ation I believe the golden-crowned kinglet 

 quite capable of such a performance. 



But I must leave this part of the subject and hasten 

 on. As to works on ornithology, Audubon's, though 

 its expense puts it beyond the reach of the mass of 

 readers, is, by far, the most full and accurate. His 

 drawings surpass all others in accuracy and spirit^ 

 while his enthusiasm and devotion to the work he had 

 tndertaken, have but few parallels in the history o\ 



