THE CAROLINA WREN. 215 



You may fancy, on first acquaintance, tliat lie 

 is an exact counterpart of some of his relatives ; 

 but by and by you will learn to know him at 

 a glance by his peculiar pose and form. Like 

 most of his wren congeners, he is in the habit, 

 when excited, of squatting — or " juking " — his 

 little body in a comical way. 



Nature, it must be conceded, has made 

 some quaint paradoxes. One can not help 

 o-oino; about in her domain with one's mind 

 bent in the form of an interrogation point. 

 Why, for instance, has she dowered the Caro- 

 lina wren with such versatile vocal resources, 

 and yet put no real melody into his throat? 

 Of the dozen or more tunes — if you can call 

 them such — which he is capable of piping, not 

 one of them can really be called melodious. 

 Be it said, however, that they are not displeas- 

 ing. Some of them ring like a bugle call ; all 

 of them are suggestive of breeze and stir and 

 untiring activity. There is nothing pathetic 

 about Carolina's songs as there is about the 

 white-throated sparrow's ; nor are they ever 

 desultory like the lazy, rambling minstrelsy 

 of the warbling vireo. 



As a rule, Carolina pipes one strain for 

 awhile, and sometimes a long while, before he 

 begins another ; yet I have heard him change 



