248 THE STORY OF THE BIRDS. 
to discourage occasionally—the sparrows always; and 
when a jay just lies around and watches for the young 
wren, he receives some very warm suggestions about 
space being better than company. 
Over the fence—but we can’t go over the fence— 
in this little book. 
Of all the little birds, he that gets nearest to me 
through the window pane or elsewhere is the house 
wren. He is a little loud, and does not get along well 
with his neighbors, but I love him for his stimulating 
presence and his confidence. We have spoken else- 
where of his greedy building habits. He soon took 
possession of all the gourds set for the chickadees, 
filled them full of rubbish, working long sticks in 
miraculously, and singing all the time. He fights 
anything—light weight or heavy—jeers at every bird, 
and trusts none of them. I saw the pair utterly rout 
a pet squirrel that had run up their home tree. They 
struck him repeatedly on the side of the head. The 
mother wren can find more grubs, worms, ete., to the 
minute than any hunter under my window. One day 
I saw her dig up a very large beetle, and she seemed 
to get something from him, as she rolled him over, 
though she was wonderfully afraid of him. When I 
went out I saw under a magnifier that he was infected 
with spiderlike parasites, but while rather large for 
parasites my unaided eye did not detect them. 
Working in the garden one day I found the male 
wren almost at my feet, and taking out my opera 
glass I saw that he was spider hunting. He soon 
found a large woolly one and was quite afraid of it, 
