BEWICK'S WREN. 75 



Dr. Gerhardt met with nests of this species in northefn 

 Georgia, generally built in holes in stumps. In one instance 

 the nest was five inches long, four in diameter and two deep, 

 with walls of great thickness. In southern Illinois it is said to 

 quite replace the house wren in all its relations to man. In 

 southern Texas, Sennett found it building in a great variety of 

 places, from a brush-fence to the thatched roof of his work- 

 shop, where they were very tame. A nest found on April iS, 

 1878, — a trifle late apparently, — he describes to me as only a 

 matted collection of various substances, such as hair, leaves, 

 feathers, cottony vegetable fibres and fine bark, the dense brush- 

 fence in which it was ensconced being sufficient to protect so 

 frail a structure." 



The eggs are pinkish white thickly covered with lilac and 

 reddish-brown splashes and dots almost wholly about the larger 

 end ; with a few slate-colored lines on the majority of speci- 

 mens. They vary considerably, but, in general, resemble those 

 of a titmouse or creeper, except that the markings are darker 

 -and the size greater. The eggs measure from .70 by .52 to 

 .64 by .50, being slightly larger than those of the house 

 wren ; Texan birds are of less size. 



In the southwest, Bewick's w ren changes its plumage some- 

 what and is known as Variety leucogastek. No. 48a, — the 

 White-bellied Wren ; on the coast of California and southward, 

 another variety (spii.ukus, No. 48*5) is found. Neither of 

 these differs essentially from the typical form. In the Birds of 

 Calitornia, Dr. J. G. Cooper wrote that the latter variety con- 

 structed an open nest low down in a bush ; but afterwards he 

 corrected this statements remarking that this case was " an un- 

 usual departure from their common habits, and was very 

 probably an old nest built by some other bird, this species gen- 

 erally building in cavities of trees, brush-heaps, etc., but now 

 apparently growing more familiar. . . A pair built in a stable 

 [near San Francisco] and had young when discovered in 

 April." 



