84 J\r£STS AND EGGS OF BIRDS. 



they are composed must be much the same. These wrens, 

 then, construct a bulky globular nest, roofed over, with a little 

 hole in one side, of the tops of coarse grasses or reeds ; it is 

 lined with finer material of the same description, and the whole 

 affair is hung upon the upright stems of growing reeds, several 

 of wliich usually pass through its walls. The home of the 

 marsh wren is thus secure against inundation during any ordi- 

 nary rise of the waters over which it hangs, while the shape of 

 the structure keeps the eggs and young from falling out when 

 the reeds are swayed In the wind. I ha\e alreadv alluded to the 

 great numbers of such nests which mav be found within small 

 areas. The number is sometimes out of apparent proportion 

 to the size of the colony, and it is supposed that the building 

 mania is so strong, that main nests are built which are never 

 occupied, just for the fun of the thing. It might be difficult 

 to prove this, yet I see nothing improbable in the supposition. 

 During the incubation of the female house wren, for instance, 

 the male often busies himself unnecessarily in dragging trash in- 

 to various odd nooks even if he does not construct a regular nest, 

 and the same instinct might easily be pushed a little further, in 

 the case of the marsh wren with the result just alluded to. " 



Such is Dr. Coues's theory, the idea being that the nervous, 

 energetic little creatures keep on building while the females are 

 incubating, to amuse themselves, or because they have nothing 

 particular to do and cannot keep still. 



A different reason has been assigned by Mr. W. E. D. Scott. 

 After giving the circumstances of finding nine nests in various 

 stages of completion in a little patch of reeds on the New^ Jer- 

 sey coast known to be inhabited by only two pairs of wrens, 

 all constructed between June 17 and 37, and only two of which 

 were occupied, Mr. Scott asks what possible use all these extra 

 nests, representing so much actual work, could be to those two 

 pairs of wrens. In this case he thinks the explanation of Dr. 

 Coues inadequate, since all these nests "were begun and appar- 

 ently deserted while the female was still laying, and not incu- 

 bating." Mr. Scott believes either that they built, and at a cer- 

 tain stage abandoned, the work as not to their mind ; or that. 



