EASTERN HOUSE WREN 115 



Should we judge Wrens by their standards or by ours? That we may insist 

 that they conform to our standards is quite a different matter. * * * 



The so-called nature-lover who talies his own standards, personal likes and 

 dislikes afield with him, is apt to find quite as much to condemn in animal, 

 as in human life. Nature attracts us primarily because she is natural. It is 

 the wild not the tame animal which appeals to us; and we want it to exhibit 

 the traits which have v/on for it a place among competitors. * * ♦ 



The House Wren has become abundant with our help and through the exer- 

 cise of the instincts which have made it a successful species. But is there any 

 reason why we should call him a criminal? As a matter of fact we are the 

 guilty ones. Inspired by the best of motives and encouraged by those in authority, 

 in an excess of zeal we have embarked on a campaign in the behalf of hole- 

 nesting birds without perhaps stopping to think just where it will lead us. 



McAtee (1926b) reviewed the evidence from the standpoint of an 

 economic ornithologist in his article "Judgment on the House Wren." 

 He writes in part as follows : 



Recently the relations of the House Wren to other birds have been fully discussed 

 in our ornithological journals. The Wren has had its supporters as well as 

 defamers, but few on either side have taken a justicial view of the controversy. 

 The evidence that House Wrens sometimes destroy the eggs and otherwise 

 interfere with the nesting of other birds is indisputable, but it is not so positively 

 realized that this is only one of the factors we must take into consideration 

 in forming a judgment (in the technical sense of the term) on the economic 

 value of the species. 



Many birds are so free from special vices or virtues that their economic status 

 is decided upon the basis of their food-habits alone. Were this true of the 

 House Wren, the species would receive a very high appraisal, for it is almost 

 exclusively insectivorous, and that, too, in chiefly commendable directions. * * * 

 The House Wren is as worthy of approbation as any of our birds on the score 

 of its food-habits. It has a better rank in this respect than most of the species 

 whose eggs it occasionally destroys. Egg- and nest-destruction by the Wren is 

 of local, not general, occurrence and the remedy should be local. It is simple 

 to eliminate bird-houses that only Wrens can use, a measure to be applied in 

 places whei'e serious depredations have been noted, or to close temporarily, or 

 reduce in number, houses that have proved bases for sporadic marauding. Most 

 problems in economic ornithology resolve themselves into local irregularities 

 of bird-behavior, and the wisest treatment in almost every case proves to be 

 that adapted both in kind and degree to local needs. 



The relations of the house wren to other birds make him a much 

 more interesting even though it be a less desirable personality. His 

 aggressions toward other birds have not been recently acquired but 

 constitute an old and well-established trait. His behavior is evidence 

 of his superior intelligence in the battle of the survival of the fittest. 

 He is activated to secure and dominate a definite area during tlie repro- 

 ductive season for the sake of his own preservation. For this reason 

 this small enterprising midget making his way in the world often 

 against superior odds deserves our respect rather than our condemna- 

 tion. If man upsets the balance of nature by his interference, for 

 example by erecting too many nesting boxes, then man alone is to 

 blame for the conditions which prevail in certain localities. 



