The Friendly House Wrens 



139 



The Wrens forthwith left their box-house on the grape-vine arbor and took 

 possession. By climbing the tree and opening the satchel, I watched them 

 many a time until the seven young ones flew away. When the young were 

 half grown, I took the satchel from the tree and fastened it on a camera, near 

 the ground. Though the Wrens complained, and, I fancy, called me some hard 

 names, they soon accepted the new situation, and kept coming and going, in 

 answer to the insistent clamoring from within the satchel. Sometimes they 

 would stop for a moment at the doorway of their home, and send forth 

 their bubbling song, or again, with a fat bug or worm, would daintily alight 

 on the up-turned handle of the satchel and walk over its edge to their door. 



PARENTAL LOVE CAUSED THEM TO BRAVE ALL DANGERS 



Last spring, a neighbor put up a scarecrow, to keep the birds away from 

 his strawberries. The wind began playing havoc with the dummy man and 

 blew his hat off the first day, but the strings held it fast against the breast 

 of the coat. It fooled the Robins and the Catbirds, and protected the berries, 

 but it just suited a pair of Wrens, that began building in the hat the second 

 day after it was placed there. 



I did not hear of this until after the young had flown, when I was taken 

 to see the nest as a great curiosity. x\s we turned the hat around, out darted 

 a little brown Wren. In the repaired nest was a second set of six eggs. These 

 hatched in due time, and then, wdth the regularity of clockwork, bugs, grubs, 

 moths, granddaddy-long-legs, and other insects, disappeared inside the hat. 

 The regular line of travel was from the corner fence-post to the sleeve of the 



