96 A SWEET-VOICED WEEN. 



or the long-tailed house wren, and I find him one 

 of the most delightful tenants of the suburbs in 

 which I live, his quaint, agreeable manners and 

 liquid notes having greatly endeared him to me. 



Those charming writers on birds, Charles C. 

 Abbott, John Burroughs and Bradford Torrey do 

 not so much as refer to him, as far as I have read 

 their works, while Mr. Ridgway saj^s that he is 

 rare and local east of the Alleghanies and north of 

 forty degrees north latitude. But here in Central 

 Ohio he flourishes, being almost as much a part of 

 many a homestead as the domestic fowls them- 

 selves. No other species, except the Carolina 

 wren, is so abundant here, while the house wren is 

 never seen ; * the winter wren is only a migrant, and 

 Parkman's wren seldom makes himself visible or 

 audible. 



I wish every lover of the feathered kingdom 

 could hear the song of this little wren ; it is such 

 a glad, sweet melody — one might almost say, " a 

 vocal caress." One day in early spring, as I stepped 

 out into my back lot, a wavering trill drifted to 

 me across tlie commons from the fence of the 



♦Since this was in type I have found a house wren in an old orchard 

 ahout a mile and a half from my home. He was, however, like the winter 

 wren, only a migrant. 



