DELAWARE VALLEY OEMTIIOLOGICAL CLUB. 21 



I find a reference to this species which, though somewhat long, 

 describes so well the conditions under which this bird must be 

 sought, that I quote it at length, with the author's permission: 

 " It was a late June day whose breaking found me upon the 

 edge of the great salt marshes which lie behind East Point 

 Light, as the Delaware Bay lies in front of it, and which runs 

 in a wide, half-land, half-bay border down the cape. I fol- 

 lowed along the black, sandy road which goes to the Light until 

 close to old Zane's Place, the last farmhouse of the uplands, 

 when I turned off into the marsh toward the river. The mos- 

 quitoes rose from the damp grass at every step, swarming up 

 around me in a cloud, and streaming off behind like a comet's 

 tail, which hummed instead of glowed. I was the only male 

 among them. It was a cloud of females, the nymphs of the 

 Bait marsh; and all through that day the singing, stinging, 

 smothering swarm danced about me, rested upon me, covered 

 me whenever I paused, so that my black leggings turned in- 

 stantl}' to a mosquito brown, and all my dress seemed dyed 

 alike. 



"Only I did not pause — not often, not long. ... I had 

 waded out into the meadow perhaps two hundred yards, leaving 

 a dark, bruised trail in the grass, when I came upon the nest of 

 the Long-billed Marsh Wren. It was a bulky house, and so 

 overburdened its frail sedge supports that it lay almost upon 

 the ground with its little round doorway wide open to the sun 

 and rain. They must have been a young couple who built it, 

 and quite inexperienced. I wonder they had not abandoned 

 it; for a crack of light into a Wren's nest would certainly addle 

 the eggs. 



"They are such tiny, dusky, tucked-away things, and their 

 cradle is so deep and dark and hidden. There were no fatali- 

 ties, I am sure, following my efforts to prop the leaning structure, 

 though the Wrens were just sure that it was all a fatality — ut- 

 terly misjudging my motives. As a rule, I have never been 

 able to help much in such extremities. Either I arrived too 

 late, or else I blundered. I thought, for a moment, that it was 

 the nest of the Long-billed' s cousin, the Short-billed Marsh 

 W^ren, that I had found, which would have been a gem indeed, 



