lyo The Wren. 



and when moulting, the Wren's song may al\va3s be heard ; it is loud and brilliant, 

 rather than melodious. 



When breeding, and it is an earlj- breeder, there is no British bird more 

 jealous of its nest : to be seen watching a Wren at work is often sufficient to 

 condemn the half-completed building, a fact which I have proved b}' actual 

 experiment : this excessive nervousness is probably the sole cause for the many 

 imperfect or deserted nests which occur, and which are supposed by rustics to be 

 purposel}- constructed as roosting-places for the male birds. But, after all, the 

 same notion has been countenanced, even by scientific men, respecting the incom- 

 plete nests formed by unpaired males of the Ba3-a Weaver ; whereas, in the latter 

 case, the nest is always completed bj' the combined labours of both sexes, and 

 apparentl}' cannot be managed by one sex unaided. 



Ouly once was I ever successful in removing eggs from a Wren's nest, 

 without causing desertion ; and then I chanced to discover some small oval white 

 pebbles close to the gorse-bush in which the nest was suspended, and substituted 

 them for the eggs ; but I was ver}' careful not to touch the nest with m}- fingers, 

 using a metal spoon to remove the eggs. The hen bird was evidently far away 

 at the time ; for, had she seen me, I do not believe she would have continued to 

 lay ; as she certainly did. 



On the other hand Air. Reginald Phillipps sa3's that he has known of a nest, 

 which had had a clutch removed, used again, even though the eggs of the second 

 clutch were removed every da}' as thej' were laid. If he had said that he himself 

 had taken part in or even witnessed this extraordiuarj- feat, I should have felt 

 bound to regard it as a very remarkable and entirel}' unparalleled fact ; as it is 

 — well, ni)' experience is diametrically opposed to that of his informant. The 

 Blue-Tit, which is one of the most confiding of birds, is often confounded with 

 the Wren, and doubtless man}' tales told of the latter relate to the former. 



I have found nests of the Wren built in the following sites : — in hedges ; 

 hawthorn-bushes ; furze ; laurels ; in iv}' on walls, or clambering round the entrances 

 to caves or grottoes ; against trunks of trees, either openly near the ground or 

 higher up in the trailing ivy ; in brambles and straggling scrub in woods, where 

 masses of the previous Acar's leaves have collected in the vines ; under overhanging 

 edges of steep banks; in faggot-, clover-, or haj'-stacks ; under projecting thatches 

 of sheds and outhouses ; upon a beam in a barn : but niVir in holes. 



In the materials used for the nest, the Wren appears to select usuall}' such 

 as will tend to conceal it ; the fact being that it builds ver}- largely with those 

 which are most handy ; thus nests bedded in heaps of dead leaves are externally 

 largely constructed of leaves, those in evergreen shrubs arc also usually formed of 



