INTRODUCTION. xxix 



the air at the end of two suspending strings, rather than tmst 

 it to the wily enemies by which it is surrounded ; the entrance, 

 for security, is also from below, and through a winding vestibule. 



Our little cheerful and almost domestic Wren {^Troglodytes 

 fulvus), which so often disputes with the Martin and the Blue- 

 bird the possession of the box set up for their accommodation 

 in the garden or near the house, in his native resort of a hollow 

 tree, or the shed of some neglected out-house, begins his fabric 

 by forming a barricade of crooked interlacing twigs, — a kind 

 of chevaux-de-frise^ — for the defence of his internal habitation, 

 leaving merely a very small entrance at the upper edge. The 

 industry of this little bird, and his affection for his mate, are 

 somewhat remarkable, as he frequently completes his habita- 

 tion without aid, and then searches out a female on whom to 

 bestow it ; but not being always successful, or the premises not 

 satisfactory to his mistress, his labor remains sometimes with- 

 out reward, and he continues to warble out his lay in solitude. 

 The same gallant habit prevails also with our recluse Wren of 

 the marshes. Wilson's Marsh Wren {Troglodytes palustris), 

 instead of courting the advantages of a proximity to our dwel- 

 lings, lives wholly among the reed-fens, suspending his mud- 

 plastered and circularly covered nest usually to the stalks of 

 the plant he so much affects. Another marsh species inhabits 

 the low and swampy meadows of our vicinity ( Troglodytes bre- 

 virostris), and with ready address constructs its globular nest 

 wholly of the intertwined sedge-grass of the tussock on which 

 it is built ; these two species never leave their subaquatic 

 retreats but for the purpose of distant migration, and avoid 

 and deprecate in angry twitterings every sort of society but 

 their own. 



Among the most extraordinary habitations of birds, illustra- 

 tive of their instinctive invention, may be mentioned that of 

 the Bengal Grosbeak, whose pensile nest, suspended from the 

 lofty boughs of the Indian fig-tree, is fabricated of grass, like 

 cloth, in the form of a large bottle, with the entrance down- 

 wards ; it consists also of two or three chambers, supposed to 

 be occasionally illuminated by the fire-flies, which, however, 



