262 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



population diminishes sharply within a few miles of the Pacific 

 Ocean ; this might be due to the scarcity of suitable swamps for nest- 

 ing purposes. The swamps within this region are mostly of low- 

 growing sedges ( Carex) , barely reaching 2 feet in height. In most 

 of the swamps the cattails {Tyjyha), of which the wrens are so fond, 

 are scarce or entirely lacking. I regularly visit two wren areas in 

 Grays Harbor County. The first is located on the shores of the 

 harbor and comprises an area of approximately 5 acres. Few cat- 

 tails are present, the swamp possessing mostly sedges with a few 

 scattered willows. The area almost touches salt water, as the limits 

 of the gi'ounds are bounded on the south and west by the high- 

 water line. I visit also a rather extensive swamp paralleling the 

 ocean beach in the vicinity of Oyhut, Wash. This swamp covers a 

 distance of about 4 miles and is composed of low sedges with a 

 few spiraea bushes." 



Spring. — Samuel F. Kathbun tells me that, near Seattle, this little 

 wren is more or less resident in the region, although found more 

 commonly from early spring until late in the fall. "There appears 

 to be a movement of the species during late March and early April ; 

 for at this period birds will be heard and seen in and about small 

 marshes or similar localities, in which they are absent during the 

 nesting season." 



Nesting. — Dr. Alcorn says in his notes that, in the localities men- 

 tioned above, the nests are usually placed within a foot or two of 

 the water ; the birds use sedge leaves for building and line the nests 

 with willow cotton ; the nests are always fragile structures ; and there 

 are not so many decoy nests as are found farther inland. 



In the dense cattail swamps farther back from the coast, the nests 

 are more substantial and more typical of the species. In the Thayer 

 collection in Cambridge there are two distinct types of well-built 

 nests, both collected by J. H. Bowles in Pierce County, Wash. One, 

 built 4 feet above the water in dense cattails, where the water was 

 3 feet deep, is a compact, oval ball, made largely of cattail down 

 interwoven with and firmly bound together with strips of the flags ; 

 it would have furnished a warm, dry shelter for the young. The 

 other, "woven among coarse marsh grass" in a fresh-water marsh, is 

 a firmly woven and well-made ball of interlaced strips of marsh 

 grasses and reeds, a common type for the species. 



Walter E. Bryant (1887) published the following note on a nest 

 found by A. M. Ingersoll in an unusual situation: "A conspicuous 

 nest, containing eggs, was woven among the almost leafless branches 

 of a young willow, five feet above a fresh-water marsh." 



The tule wren seems to be a prolific builder of decoy or male nests. 

 Irene G. Wheelock (1904) says that she has examined "30 in 1 

 day and found but 1 occupied, and that was the oldest, most tumble- 



