284 THE SHORT-BILLED MARSH WREN. 



dark, swampy forest, filled with tangled piles of fallen trees 

 and branches. The entrance to the nest on one side was 

 very narrow, its diameter being less than an inch, and was 

 covered with an overhanging bit of moss, which the bird 

 was obliged to push up on going in." 



In 1878 Mr. James Bradbury, of Maine, found three nests, 

 one "sunk into the thick moss which enveloped the trunk 

 of a fallen tree," and two placed under the roots of fallen 

 trees. All the above nests seemed to resemble each other in 

 being more or less globular, with an entrance at the side, 

 the external structure being of moss, or of moss and twigs, 

 and thickly lined with fur and feathers; each nest being in- 

 geniously concealed or ensconced away. The eggs, five or 

 six, some .65X.50, are crystal-white, specked and spotted 

 with reddish-brown, the markings being generally distribu- 

 ted or gathered about the large end. 



This species, closely allied to the Common Wren of Eu- 

 rope, occupies all North America, wintering from the Mid- 

 dle States, or even New England, southward; and breeding 

 from about the same point northward, especially in Maine 

 and even in Labrador. 



Considering the smallness of its wings, and its ordinarily 

 short flights, the immense distances of its migrations have 

 always been a great mystery to ornithologists. Alaska has 

 a larger variety of this species, named Anorthura alascensis. 



THE SHORT-BILLED MARSH WREN. 



As I traverse an open marsh in another part of this same 

 swamp, a part which is wet in the late fall and the early 

 spring, but dry in summer, I find the Short-billed Marsh 

 Wrens {Cistothorus stellaris) in considerable numbers. If 

 dependent on the eye merely it would be exceedingly diffi- 

 cult to find these diminutive creatures, as they are nearly all 



