112 Bird Studies. 



The Winter Wren is a short, stout brown bird with a short tail and very 



distinct black barring on the flanks, lower breast, and belly. There is a line 



of obscure buff above the eye, and the wing^s and tail are 



-r , h"! ^l v^!!* •„ barred with black. There are obscure broken bars of 



Troglodytes hiemalis Vieill. 



black on the dark reddish brown back. The throat and 

 breast are lighter brown than the back and are obscurely barred with a darker 

 shade of the same color. The sexes are alike. 



It is the smallest of the wrens that are found in our woodlands, beine 

 little more than four inches long. 



The nest is built of twigs, moss, and grasses placed in a brush heap in 

 the roots of a fallen tree, or like locality. The eggs, from four to seven in 

 number, are white with a sparse speckling of reddish brown. They are seven 

 tenths of an inch long, and half an inch in breadth. 



This bird ranges throughout Eastern North America, breeding north 

 from the Northern United States, and at elevations on the Alleghanies south 

 to North Carolina. They winter from their southern breeding limits south- 

 ward to Florida. 



The Winter Wren is famed for its vocal powers, and is one of the sweet- 

 est songsters of the deep woods, during the breeding season. 



The Redstart is a very sprightly bird, with the entire upper parts, as 



well as throat and breast, lustrous black. The terminal parts of the wing 



feathers, the two middle tail feathers, and the terminal third 



American Redstart. ^^ ^^^ remainder of the tail feathers are also black. The 



Setophaga rutictlla (Linn.), 



parts of these feathers not black are bright salmon color. 

 The sides of the breast, region under the wings, and flanks are intense orange 

 salmon color. The belly is white, suffused with a salmon tinge. The bill 

 looks somewhat like that of a flycatcher and has noticeable bristles, at its 

 base. The female and immature birds have a general resemblance to the 

 adult male just described, the pattern of coloration being the same. The 

 salmon regions are replaced by greenish yellow, the black areas of the upper 

 parts are olive green with grayish suffusion, especially on the head, and the 

 under parts grayish white, except where the greenish yellow prevails. The 

 birds are about five and one third inches lone, and rather slim in build. 



The nest is a compact structure of plant fibres and lined with finer mate- 

 rial of a like nature. It is placed usually in a crotch, but sometimes is saddled 

 on a limb, at varying heights, from five to thirty feet from the ground. The 



