356 THE COMMON WREN. 



ingthat his nest is somewhere in that structure, I hideaway 

 and watch. In a few moments he flits down and drops into a 

 rather loose mortise-joint, where a brace enters a post. The 

 entrance is very small, but there is quite a space inside. 

 Having examined any considerable number of nests, one 

 can conceive the contents and arrangement of such a cavity 

 without access to it. However large the space, it will be 

 well filled up with rough, crooked twigs, leaving a bristling 

 and irregular passage barely large enough to admit the tiny 

 occupant, which passage leads to the nest, ensconced away 

 in the remotest corner. The nest proper is composed of 

 dried grasses well laid, and is well lined with hair and 

 feathers. The variety of cavities appropriated for a nest 

 by this pertinacious little bird is beyond account — the bird- 

 box, the holes about the house-cornice, a hole in a post or 

 in an old apple-tree, the mud dwelling of the Eave Swallow, 

 the inside of a log-pump, the pocket or sleeve of an old 

 coat hanging in an out-building, an old hat with rent crown 

 stuck up against the wall, the brain-cavity of a horse's skull 

 mounted on a stake — in short, any cavity into which suffi- 

 cient material of the proper kind can be stowed and arranged 

 for a breeding tenement. A nest once found in the clothes- 

 line box of Professor Ware, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 

 and which has attained classic fame, filled a space '' consid- 

 erably more than a foot square," and consisted of "theexuvia 

 of a snake several feet in length, large twigs, pieces of India- 

 rubber suspenders, oak leaves, feathers, pieces of shavings, 

 hair, hay, etc., etc." 



With what boldness and pugnacity this Wren will drive 

 the gentle Bluebird, or the large Black Martin from his box; 

 how he will dislodge the Eave Swallow from his jug-nosed 

 tenement; thus taking possession of the rightful home of 

 another, on which he has no claim whatever; and how he 



