The Reaches of the Prairie 133 



ence of the female. She had been there the whole time, and 

 it was upon her that the brown lover above had been shower- 

 ing his vocal sweets. That experience taught me a lesson in 

 humility. 



It did not take me long to make a friend of the house 

 wren. Perhaps it was toleration rather than friendship he 

 extended. Here is humility again, for I cannot get over the 

 brown thrasher experience. The wren would let me stand at 

 the foot of the lamp-post with my head within three feet of 

 him. After his first fear was over he would not stop his song 

 at my approach. I cannot understand to this day how such 

 a little throat could hold such a volume of song. Mrs. Wren 

 seldom left the nest. Her husband would take food to her. 

 He had the secret of the lurking place of many spiders, and 

 his food-collecting was but the work of a minute. I do not 

 think that the male bird once relieved his wife of the duties 

 of incubation. She made no complaint as far as I could dis- 

 cover. The wren had charged me no admission to his musical 

 entertainments but I found a chance to repay him. I saved 

 his home from being carried off bodily by some village small 

 boys. I witnessed the leading forth of the young wrens from 

 the lamp-post home. They came out one at a time. It 

 seemed as if they would never stop coming. Seven of them, 

 one after another, took a diagonal course to the grass. The 

 mother soon coaxed them to a woodpile about which they 

 stayed for a week. There was perhaps something in the 

 cabalistic number, seven. None of the little ones met with 

 harm, though there were two full-grown cats on the premises. 

 While the young were in the nest both the parents were kept 

 busy feeding them. Not far from the house was a brick 

 wall Ivy clambered over a part of its surface. The wall 



