THE WINTER WREN. 197 
in the centre, and lined with fine grasses, feathers, wool, and 
other soft materials. The eggs are usually six in number, 
sometimes eight, and I have known as many as ten being 
found in one nest: their color is a pale-reddish flesh-color, 
covered with fine dots or sprinkling of a darker color. 
Dimensions vary from .62 by .50 to .59 by .48 inch. Occa- 
sionally, two broods are reared in the season; but, as a 
general thing, one brood only. The wrens are extremely 
beneficial in the garden and orchard: they destroy immense 
numbers of insects and their larve, and are, in consequence 
of their sociable habits and pleasant dispositions, great favor- 
ites. It is hardly necessary to say a good word in their 
favor, as they are well appreciated and protected. 
. As with many other birds, this species, although very 
generally distributed, is not, by any means, regularly spread 
through these States. It may be quite abundant in one 
town; and in another, perhaps five miles off, not an indi- 
vidual is to be seen. In Cambridge, Mass., it is one of the 
most abundant of birds; but, in Newton or Dorchester, it is 
comparatively rare. I cannot account for this irregularity, 
and have never heard a plausible or satisfactory reason for 
it given. Some species of insects, which are favorites with 
it for food, may possibly be found less abundantly in some 
localities than in others; but 1 am unable to say if this is 
the case, since I do not know of any particular ifsect which 
this bird prefers. Numbers that I have examined, con- 
tained in their stomachs spiders in abundance; but what 
species they were, or what were their peculiar localities, I 
am ignorant. 
TROGLODYTES HYEMALIS. — Vieiillot. 
The Winter Wren. 
Sylvia troglodytes, Wilson. Am. Orn., I. (1808) 139. 
Troglodytes hyemalis, Vieillot. Nouv. Dict., XXXIV. (1819) 514. Aud. Orn. 
Biog., IV. (1838) 430. 
Troglodytes Ewropeus, Bonaparte. Obs. Wils. (1825), No. 137. Nutt. Man., I. 
1832) 427. 
