280 



THE OOLOGIST. 



Nesting Habits of the Baird's and Carolina 

 Wrens in Travis County. Texas. 



Baird's Wren. 



Thryoynades beivicki ipilurus. 



This very interesting little bii'd is 

 probaD.y our most common Wren. It 

 is found in all kinds of country, but 

 from my observations, I think it prefers 

 a broken country, and little patches of 

 prairie and mesquite groves, alternat- 

 ing with the timber. 



They are fussj" little creatures, hard- 

 ly ever silent, and always keeping up a 

 querulous "c//ee, chee, chee. Even as 

 earlj^ as January the males are great 

 singers, and early on an April morning 

 one can not go far without hearing the 

 sweet and cheerful song of one of these 

 little birds. 



In February they can be seen in pairs 

 promenading the back yards, peering 

 into every hole, bird-box and crevice. 

 They seem to be often undecided as to 

 a nesting place, for I haveknovvn a pair 

 to start three different nests without 

 any apparent cause. About Mai'ch 

 15th the Baird's Wrens begin building 

 their nests mostly in bird-boxes or on a 

 rafter in the barn. The nest is simply 

 a mass of rubbish, but always softly 

 lined with feathers, cotton, or horse 

 hair. Six eggs is a common comple- 

 ment, but as many as nine or as few as 

 four may constitute a full clutch. The 

 eggs are white, more or less speckled 

 with brown of varying shades, and lilac. 

 Sometimes the specks of I'eddish brown 

 are thickly and uniformly distributed; 

 again they are collected in a ring sur- 

 rounding the crown or else rather larger 

 specks of chocolate brown and lilac 

 shell markings are more sparingly dis- 

 posed. A set collected in 1890 was in a 

 beautiful bark, and wool nest placed 

 on top of a post in the eaves of a gal- 

 lary. It was the largest set I ever col- 

 lected, the number laid being nine. 



The effgs \vei*e of a creamy-white back- 

 ground, and lightly specked with brown 

 and lilac. Several albino eggs came 

 under my notice last spring; one was. 

 immaculate white, and another was al- 

 most white being finely specked with 

 brown; both eggs wei'e in sets of nor- 

 mally colored eggs. 



Some of the Baird's Wrens must 

 spend their whole life in Austin, as 

 they are seen all through the year flit- 

 ting about in the gardens. 



Carolina Wken. 



T/i ryothorus iudovici. mus . 

 An abundant bird iu the bottom 

 land. The Carolina Wren is another 

 tine singer, but spends too much time in 

 scolding Owls and Crows. Often es- 

 pecially in the Spring you can hear a. 

 him perched high on a topmost 

 twig of some tall pecan tree pouring 

 forth his melodious song. This bird 

 cannot be particular in its choice of a 

 nesting place, for their nests have been ' 

 found in hollow logs, under the cornice 

 of a house, in a can placed in small oak 

 tree, and in a crevice in a rock wall. I 

 think the hollow log suits it best as. 

 most of the nests found here were in 

 them. The nest is usually composed of 

 twigs, grass, vveeds, leaves, cotton, 

 wool, rags, and hair, but in several in- 

 stances I have found it to consist whol- 

 ly of wool and hair. There is not as- 

 much variation in the eggs of this 

 species, as found in others. Rarely an 

 albino is found iu a clutch. The ground 

 color is white, spotted thickly and fine- 

 ly with specks of reddish brown, and 

 salmon, with light spots of lilac, gener- 

 ally forming an irregular ring around 

 the larger end. The ground color is- 

 usually concealed. Fresh eggs may be 

 found from April Lst to May 15th. The 

 Carolina Wren stays here in Travis, 

 county, both winter and summer, as do. 

 most all the breeding Wrens. 



James M. Odell, Jr., 

 Austin, Travis Co., Texas. 



