CAROLINA WREN 215 



peratures ranging from sixteen to thirty degrees below zero, and after 

 that the species was not again noted until April. One boy in Upshur 

 County found five Carolina Wrens frozen to death, and there were 

 other reports of individuals found dead." 



The wrens that survive northern winters generally live in sheltered 

 localities. The one that Dr. Townsend and I saw at Ipswich, Mass., 

 was living in a planted thicket of spruces near a house and close to 

 the sea on February 7, 1909, where it was seen again up to March 12. 

 Dr. Witmer Stone (1911) writes: 



In the low, flat ground bordering the tide-water creelis of southwestern New 

 Jersey, they are particularly abundant, especially in midwinter, when it always 

 seemed to me that most of the Cardinals and Carolina Wrens gathered in these 

 swamps from all the country round about. Here they find food and shelter 

 suitable to their needs, and here the winter sun seems to shine more warmly 

 than back in the higher grounds of Pennsylvania. 



The Carolina Wren, however, is not entirely confined to these low grounds in 

 winter, but ranges well up the narrow valleys and deep ravines, and often 

 we find him along the rocky banks of some ravine where flows a narrow, tum- 

 bling stream and here the hemlocks of the North mingle with the redbud and 

 tulip-tree of the South. 



A note recently received from Mrs. Laskey states that Nashville, 

 Tenn., "experienced an unusually cold winter in 1940, the low tem- 

 peratures and heavy snows in January were disastrous apparently 

 to our Carolina Wrens. They were very scarce during the following 

 nesting season. Previously, everywhere one went, its cheery song 

 and its trills could be heard in winter. This year, 1941, they have 

 not been so scarce, but in my observations not reaching normal 

 numbers." 



Mrs. Mary C. Rhoads (1924) tells an interesting story of a Carolina 

 wren that spent the winter nights in her conservatory in Haddonfield, 

 N. J. He entered each night and left each morning, at first through 

 an open door, but eventually through a hole she made for him which 

 he learned to use. He roosted, ate, drank, bathed, and sang there all 

 winter, sometimes even entering the dining room to pick up crumbs; 

 he continued to patronize the conservatory from sometime in the fall 

 until March 24, and must have made a delightful winter guest. 



Mr. Saunders writes to me from Fairfield, Conn. : "My records since 

 I have lived in Fairfield show that this bird was not found from 1920 

 to 1925, but was recorded fairly frequently from 1925 to 1933. Then 

 it disappeared again till 1939 but has been present since April of that 

 year up to the present (November 1941) ." 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — Eastern United States and northeastern Mexico; non- 

 migratory. 



