cuinstances would admit, and to this end he had put up a real lamp-ix)st which 

 held in position a steady light for the direction of ])Ossible travelers. Not many 

 guests were attracted and the light fell into disrepute ; the wick was no longer 

 trimmed and the match no longer applied. The post, however, was suffered to 

 stand. It happened that it stood within ten feet of my ground Hoor bedroom 

 window. The morning after my arrival at the little prairie inn I was awakened 

 by a sweet song from without. I drew the curtain aside and discovered the 

 singer. It was a house wren that had taken perch on the top of the lamp-post 

 and was saluting the rising sun. The little fellow sang all the time I was 

 dressing, and for the next two weeks I don't think that I knew five minutes of 

 the daylight hours to pass, while I was in the vicinity of the house, that the 

 wren's song was absent from my ears. He certainly took the palm for musical 

 industry, and I am glad to record that he afterward proved as industrious in 

 what some people may claim to be more useful lines, though he is a savage who 

 doubts that music has its uses. 



The lamp-post was surmounted by a conical-shaped tin arrangement. There 

 were apertures at the edges, made so as to i)rovide for proper combustion of the 

 light. It did not take me long to find out that a pair of house wrens had pre- 

 empted the tin top of the lamp-post for a home, i have said that the house 

 wren in his morning solo was saluting the rising sun. He was doing nothing 

 of the kind. He was singing to his mate, who. just below him, was busy keeping 

 her eggs warm. Birds always sing for the benefit of their mates. I lay for 

 ten minutes one day on the ground under a tall osage orange from the toj) of 

 which a brown thrasher was singing his ravishing song. My only thought was 

 that the thrasher was singing to me. I flattered myself. I finally saw a move- 

 ment in the thick part of the tree just below the singer's perch, and in another 

 instant I discovered the presence of the female. She had been there the whole 

 time, and it was upon her that the brown lover above had been showering his 

 vocal sweets. That experience taught me a lesson in humility. 



It did not take me long to make a friend of the house wren. Perhaps it 

 was toleration rather than friendship he extended. Here is humility again, for 

 I cannot get over the brown thrasher experience. The wren would let me stand 

 at the foot of the lamp-post with my head within three feet of him. After his 

 first fear was over he would not stop his song at my approach. I cannot under- 

 stand to this day how such a little throat could hold such a volume of song. 

 Mrs. Wren seldom, left the nest. Her husband would take food to her. He had 

 the secret of the lurking jilace of many spiders, and his food-collecting was but 

 the work of a minute. I do not think that the male bird once relieved his wife 

 of the duties of incubation. She made no complaint as far as I could discover. 

 The wren had charged me no admission to his musical entertainments but I found 

 a chance to repay him. I saved his home from being carried off bodily by some 

 village small boys. I witnessed the leading forth of the young wrens from the 

 Iami)-p()st home. They came out one at a time. 1 1 <eenied as if they would never 



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