196 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



portions ; wing-coverts, pale buffy-brown, barred or 

 transversely spotted with blackish ; secondaries and pri- 

 maries, dusky, their outer webs with broad marginal 

 spots of pale buffy-brown producing broad bands on 

 closed Vi'ing ; sides of head, pale brownish-buiif or dull 

 brownish-white, iivdistinctly streaked with darker; 

 check region, chin, throat, breast, and abdomen zt'hite 

 (slightly dull or biiffy) ; chest, sides, flanks, and under 

 tail-coverts cinnamon-buff. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest ; On or close to the ground, in 

 a tussock of marsh grass, the tops of which are deftly 

 and closely woven together forming roof and sides ; 



construction similar to the Long-billed Marsh Wren's, 

 but shape less clearly defined because of its location; 

 lining made of finer grass, cat-tail down, and some 

 feathers. Eggs: 6 to 8, pure white, unmarked; rarely 

 with a few lavender marks. 



Distribution.— Eastern North America; breeds 

 from southeastern Saskatchewan, southern Keewatin, 

 southern Ontario, and southern Maine south to eastern 

 Kansas, central Missouri, central Indiana, and northern 

 Delaware; winters from southern Illinois and southern 

 New Jersey to southern Te.xas, Louisiana, and Florida; 

 accidental in Colorado. 



The curious habit — if it may correctly be 

 termed a habit — of building more than one 

 nest, but using only one, which seems to 

 be a trait of the Wren family — and of 

 other species as well — appears to be quite 

 strongly developed in this little bird. That very 

 common type of observer who is quick to 

 account for the actions of wild creatures, by 

 ascribing them to distinctively human mental 

 operations, explains this particular performance' 

 by attributing it to " strategic ability " in the ani- 

 mal concerned. This implies the possession and 

 exercise by the animal of the reasoning power, 

 in fact of actual subtlety, in a degree which none 

 of its other observed acts indicate. Much more 

 sensible explanations of such acts are that they 

 are due to indecision or forgetfulness or sheer 

 stupidity. In some instances the building of a 



Drawing by R. I. Brasher 



SHORT-BILLED MARSH WREN 



its ability to scamper through grass and brush and 

 to elude the sharpest eye 



NEST OF SHORT-BILLED MARSH WREN 



second nest and the desertion of the first may 

 mean that the bird discovered something unde- 

 sirable about the situation of the first one. But 

 what is to be said of the Phwhe, for example, who 

 was industriously building at the same time three 

 nests within two or three feet of one another on 

 the same beam under a porch, and doubtless 

 would have persisted in this superfluous labor 

 had not her attention been concentrated on one 

 of the nests by the placing of stones over the 

 other two. This may have been an atteinpt at 

 ])rofound strategy, but common sense prompts 

 the explanation that it reflected downright 

 stupidity. 



As to this |j;irticiilar \\'ren's needless nest 

 building, we certainly have no good reason to 

 suppose that it bespeaks a strategical faculty, or 

 anything of the kind. If the Phcebe was so 

 forgetful as to build three nests in plain sight, 

 and within a few feet of one another, an equal 

 degree of forgetfulness might easily overtake a 

 ^^'ren, building in a uniform growth of marsh- 

 grass and reeds so dense that nests might be com- 

 pletely concealed from each other thotigh they 

 were placed only a few yards apart 



There are, however, certain facts about the 



