Pa 
THE LONG-BILLED MARSH WREN. 193 
HIS interesting and not generally well-known little bird 
is 2 summer inhabitant of New England. Although 
not uncommon in Massachusetts and the other two southern 
States, it seldom ventures north of the first State, where it 
is confined to the neighborhood of the salt-water marshes. 
It makes its appearance about the middle of May; and its 
presence is soon made known by its lively, chattering song, 
and grotesque dodgings among the reeds and tall grass in 
which it makes its home. I cannot refrain from giving the 
exceedingly interesting account of its habits, &c., by Wilson. 
He says, — 
«The Marsh Wren arrives in Pennsylvania about the middle of 
May, or as soon as the reeds and a species of nymphea, usually 
called splatter-docks, which grow in great luxuriance along the tide- 
water of our rivers, are sufficiently high to shelter it. To such 
places it almost wholly limits its excursions, seldom venturing far 
from the river. Its food consists of flying insects and their larve, 
and a species of green grasshopper that inhabits the reeds. As to its 
notes, it would be mere burlesque to call them by the name of song. 
Standing on the reedy borders of the Schuylkill or Delaware, in the 
month of June, you hear a low crackling sound, somewhat similar 
to that produced by air-bubbles forcing their way through mud or 
boggy ground when trod upon. This is the song of the Marsh 
Wren: but as, among the human race, it is not given to one man 
to excel in every thing, and yet each perhaps has something pecu- 
liarly his own; so, among birds, we find a like distribution of talents 
and peculiarities. The little bird now before us, if deficient and 
contemptible in singing, excels in the art of design, and constructs 
a nest which, in durability, warmth, and convenience, is scarcely 
inferior to one, and far superior to many, of its more musical breth 
ren. This is formed outwardly of wet rushes mixed with mud, 
well intertwined, and fashioned into the form of a cocoanut. A 
small hole is left two-thirds up for entrance, the upper edge of 
which projects like a pent-house over the lower to prevent the 
admission of rain. The inside is lined with fine soft: grass, and 
sometimes feathers; and the outside, when hardened by the sun, 
resists every kind of weather. This nest is generally suspended 
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