WRENS 



187 



rump, paler and more grayish-brown, variegated vvitli 

 white, upper tail-coverts and middle tail-leathers, 

 brownish-gray, rather broadly, but irregularly, barred 

 with dusky, these dusky bars sometimes much broken 

 and confused; tail (except middle feathers), mostly 

 black, the side feathers broadly barred with white, the 

 rest crossed near tip by a broad bar or band of white; 

 the outer webs of all except outermost pair hr(jadly 

 barred or banded basally with brownish-gray : wing- 

 coverts and inner quills, mainly grayish spotted with 

 •dusky and also varied with whitish bars or streaks, 

 especially on smaller coverts ; primary coverts, 

 primaries, and secondaries (except inner quills), 

 dusky, their outer webs conspicuously spotted with 

 white or brownish-white ; a broad, conspicuous, and 

 sharply defined stripe of white over the eye usually 

 margined above by a narrow line of black ; a broad 

 brown stripe under the eyes and occupying upper por- 

 tion of ear region, but extending beyond to side of 

 neck; lores, grayish; rest of sides of head, white, or 



brownisli-white, the lower part of the ear region 

 streaked with black or dusky ; chin, throat, and chest, 

 white, spotted (rarely broadly streaked) with black; 

 breast, white or buffy-white, deepening into ochraceous- 

 buff or cinnamon-buff on flanks, abdomen, and anal 

 region, the wdiole surface marked with streaks or spots 

 of black, these larger and broader on flanks ; under 

 tail-coverts, white or bufTy with large spots of black; 

 bill, dusky horn color ; iris, red. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest: In cactus thicket, yucca, 

 or other thorny bushes, a large flask-shaped structure 

 lying horizontal, with entrance at mouth ; constructed 

 of sticks, thorns, straw, and grasses, lined with 

 feathers. Eggs: 4 to 7, white or buffy-white, thickly 

 sprinkled with rich chestnut spots, sometimes hiding the 

 ground color. 



Distribution. — Desert regions from soutliern parts 

 of California, Nevada. Utah, Xew Mexico, and Texas 

 south to northern Lower California and the northern 

 States of Mexico. 



Take it from nearly every standpoint. Mother 

 Nature is strict and harsh with all her children 

 •of the desert. Life is spent on the march or on 

 the firing line. Nearly everything is fortified 

 with thorns. The cactus has a panoply of points 

 to protect its soft spongy meat ; the mesqnite. 

 palo verde, :md the delicate white poppy clothe 

 themselves in thorns. 



Of all the desert plants, the choUa cactus is 

 the most treacherous. I shall never forget my 

 first experience. It is a favorite nesting place of 

 the Cactus \\ ren. When I first saw a Cactus 

 ^^'ren's nest. I was anxious to find out what it 

 contained. It was a gourd-shaped bundle of 

 fibers and grasses with a hallway running in 

 from the side. I coid<ln't look in, so I tried to 

 feel. I ran my hand in as far as I could till 

 the thorns about the entrance pricked into my 

 flesh. I started to pull back. The more I pulled, 

 the tighter the thorns clung and the deeper they 

 pricked. I was in a trap. I reached for my 

 knife to cut some of the thorns off, but had to 

 cringe and let some of the others tear out. I 

 looked at them, but could see no barbs. Yet 

 when they once enter the flesh, one can readily 

 tell they have tiny barbs, for it tears the flesh 

 to get them out. 



The Cactus ^Vren, as a rule, selects the 

 thorniest place in a cholla cactus, although he 

 sometimes nests in a mesquite or palo verde. 

 Like the Tule Wren or Winter Wren, this bird 

 often builds nests that are not used. These are 

 called " cock nests," and are probablv built bv 

 the male wliile the female is incubating. It is 

 a question whether they are built from the stand- 

 point of protection, that is having several tmused 

 nests about as a ruse, or whether the bird merely 



builds homes until the pair gets a nest that suits 

 them exactly, .^t any rate, we examined quite 

 a good many nests before we really found one 

 that contained eggs. We got the im]")ression 

 that some of these birds were doing nothing day 

 after day except building new homes. .Some of 

 the Wrens, however, were young, and ine.xperi- 



Drawing by R. I. li. , ,. ^ 



CACTOS WREN (J nat. size) 



A desert bird that builds in a iheraux-de-fri^e of yucca bayonets and 

 cactus needles 



enced at nest building, for occasionally we 

 noticed where a nest was so poorly built that 

 either the floor dropped out or the roof caved in. 

 When one thitiks of a Wren, he thinks of a 

 tiny fidgety body with an up-turned tail. If he 

 has this in mind when he visits the cactus 

 country, he will likely not know what the Cactus 

 Wren is, for it is a very unwren-like bird. It 

 is larger in size than an English .Sparrow or the 

 Bluebird. Its song is tmwren-like, but the bird 

 may be recognized by the white throat and breast 

 which are heavily marked with black round 



