NUTHATCHES, TITMICE, CREEPERS, AND WRENS. m 



edly observed both this and other wrens carrying young 

 locusts to their nestlings. Nearly half the food of several 

 specimens shot in an orchard infested by canker-worms con- 

 sisted of these pests. Fifty-two stomachs were examined at 

 the United States Department of Agriculture, the record show- 

 ing " that ninety-eight per cent, of the stomach contents was 

 made up of insects or their allies, and only two per cent, was 

 vegetable, including bits of grass and similar matter, evidently 

 taken by accident with the insects. Half of their food con- 

 sisted of grasshoppers and beetles ; the remainder, of cater- 

 pillars, bugs, and spiders." 



The house-wren is accused, 1 apparently on good evidence, 

 of sometimes pecking holes in the eggs of chipping-sparrows 

 and throwing them out of the nest. Probably this is a special 

 habit of certain birds, due to unusual conditions, although it 

 may well lead bird-lovers to watch the wrens to see how 

 general it is. 



A mother wren observed by Judd made one hundred and 

 ten visits to her nest in feeding her young in four hours and 

 thirty-seven minutes, feeding them one hundred and eleven 

 insects and spiders. 



Two species of Marsh-Wrens are common in the United 

 States, the long-billed and the short-billed. They especially 

 haunt swampy ground, the former building an enormous glob- 

 ular nest among the reeds. Both species feed upon insects, 

 spiders, and snails. Of fourteen Wisconsin specimens of the 

 long-billed marsh-wren, one had eaten " one ant ; one, a cat- 

 erpillar ; one, three beetles ; three, three moths ; one, a small 

 grasshopper ; one, five grasshoppers 1 eggs ; one, a dragon-fly ; 

 and one, a small snail." (King.) Five Maryland specimens 

 had eaten spiders, beetles, bugs, leaf-hoppers, flies, four-winged 

 parasites, and ants, the first two forming the major portion of 

 the food. 



1 Bird Lore, ii. 90. 



