146 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



finer on the inside, and lined with various kinds of animal fur and with 

 feathers. Both birds worked together in constructing their nest, beginning 

 on the 11th of April, and on the 27th of the same month this contained 

 seven eggs. The nest Avas not covered at the top, in the manner of the 

 Carolina Wren. In the following season another pair commenced building 

 their nest in his bed, in a log-house. Driven from these impossible quarters, 

 they tried the same experiment in various other parts of the house, but only 

 to abandon it, and at last finished by making a successful attempt in the 

 hay-loft. Their visits to that portion of Georgia, he informed me, were 

 irregular and only occasional. In 1859 he had not met with any birds of 

 this species for the space of five years. 



The eggs measure .67 by .50 of an inch in their average proportions, 

 resembling somewhat those of the Carolina Wren, but having a lighter 

 ground, with fewer and finer markings of slate and reddish-brown. The 

 ground-color is of a pinkish-white. 



Mr. A. Boucard obtained specimens of these birds in the winter months, 

 in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, probably of the var. leucogaster. 



We learn from Mr. Pddgway that in Southern Illinois (as far north as lati- 

 tude 38° 20' 20") this Wren is very abvmdant, and tlie most familiar species 

 of the family. In certain localities (as in the Valley of tlie Wabash) it 

 entirely replaces the Troglodytes cedon, the latter being wholly unknown. In 

 its habits it is even more familiar than that species, always preferring 

 the out-buildings, even in large towns, to the neighborhood of the woods, 

 and still further increases its attractions by possessing a charming song, 

 a real song, of sweet notes finely modulated, and uttered, generally, as 

 the bird perches upon a fence or the stable roof, its head thrown back, 

 and its long tail pendent as it sings. The confused, gabbling sputter of 

 T. arlon, uttered as it pauses just for an instant in its restless hopping 

 through the ivy, cannot be compared to the chant of liquid musical notes 

 of this species, which resembles more nearly, both in modulation and power, 

 that of the Song Sparrow {Mdospiza melodia), though far superior to it. 

 On ordinary occasions the note of Bewick's Wren is a soft, low plit, uttered 

 as the bird hops about the fence or stable, its long tail carried upright, and 

 jerked to one side at each hop. In its movements it is altogether more 

 deliberate and less restless than the T. ludovicianus, or Troglodytes ccdon, 

 neither of which it much resembles in motion, and still less in notes. The 

 nest of this Wren is usually built about the out-houses, a mortise-hole or 

 some weU-concealed corner being generally selected. Old stables and ash- 

 hoppers are especially frequented as nesting-places. Mr. Eidgway found one 

 in the bottom of the conical portion of a quail-net which was hung up in a 

 shed, and another in a piece of stove-pipe which lay horizontally in tlie gar- 

 ret of a smoke-house ; another rested upon a flat board over the door of an 

 out-house, while a fourtli was placed behind the weather-boarding of a build- 

 ing. The nest is generally "s^ery bulky, though the bulk is regulated to suit 



