THE OOLOGIST. 



119 



eyeing him in- a curious, enquiring 

 sort of manner, with cocked tail and 

 turned head, and during its sus- 

 picious inspection of you, it will all 

 the time keep scolding, chuckling 

 and chattering, protesting vigorously 

 against your intrusion. As long as 

 you stand still and motionless, the 

 bird will regard you from its perch, 

 but endeavor to approach, as cau- 

 tiously as you like, it will instantly 

 "dive" at your first movement into 

 a veritable tangle of dead and living 

 rushes, chattering noisily, and its 

 loud incessant cries will continue un- 

 til the intruder has departed. And 

 although the bird is invisible, the sur- 

 reptitious, cunning little elf is sus- 

 piciously regarding you from the tan- 

 gle, keeping a "weather eye" on your 

 movements. 



But should the intruder advance 

 and pursue the wary bird, it will run, 

 seemingly mouse-like, and half fly 

 through the rushes, never above them, 

 and the pursuer must need be fleet 

 of foot to approach close enough to 

 flush and make one take wing over 

 the marsh. I have tried several times 

 to do so, but my attempts were al- 

 ways failures. This, however, is a 

 large cat-tail marsh with water over 

 a foot in depth. It is comparatively 

 easy to flush them from small soli- 

 tary patches and clumps of rushes 

 and make them fly into others. 



By the fifteenth of May, or later, 

 according to the backwardness or 

 earliness of the spring, the cat-tail 

 rushes are tall enough for the birds to 

 nest in, and by this time the domin- 

 ant rushes of the marshes are the liv- 

 ing o^ies that have almost concealed 

 the fallen and fast decaying old year's 

 growth. 



Such is the condition of a cat-tail 

 march at Richmond, this county, 

 where I have found the secretive 

 Long-billed Marsh Wren nesting in 



abundance. And in this marsh they 

 nest earlier than in any other locality 

 in the vicinity of the city, where I 

 have found them. 



This marsh comprises about twen- 

 ty acres of cat-tail rushes, inter- 

 spersed here and there with calamus 

 and spatter dock, and it is drained by 

 the Delaware river, along which it 

 lies, separated by a bank which car- 

 ries a railroad. It is almost five miles 

 from the city hall and within the cor- 

 porate limits of the city, the largest 

 marsh in the northern section of the 

 county. It has been divided into 

 three parts by two intersecting 

 streets and a canal. The streets, 

 however, are unopen, consisting mere- 

 ly of dirt-covered sewers, used by cas- 

 ual pedestrians to and from the river. 

 A large dump on the west side of 

 the river is fast encroaching upon 

 and diminishing its size at an alarm- 

 ing rate, threatening its destruction 

 in two or three years. The cat-tail 

 rushes grow in large and small 

 clumps and patches in water ranging 

 in depth from one to four feet, the 

 ordinary depth of which is a foot. 



Most of my studies of the peculiar 

 traits, habits and nidification of the 

 Long-billed Marsh Wren has been 

 made in this marsh, as it is near my 

 home. 



As hitherto mentioned, the Long- 

 billed Marsh Wren commences nest 

 building by the fifteenth of May, or 

 later, according to the season, but 

 these birds as a rule are early nesters, 

 and by early June the majority of 

 them have begun. 



What a time the birds have nest 

 building! Both birds assist in build- 

 ing the globular shaped structures, 

 and oft' times they have as many as 

 four under construction at a time, 

 and in various stages of completion. 

 Sometimes a pair of birds will build 

 four good nests and select the most 



