INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS 



it retires. Nest-building occupies the female a part of 

 each of six clays, and I have not been able to detect a male 

 assisting in this work. A large overhanging tussock comes 

 first in favour as a site for the nest ; next, low prickly 

 bushes. During incubation the female leaves the nest 

 frequently to feed. The evening of the first day the young- 

 leave the nest is an anxious time for the parents. Much 

 calling and persuasion is needed to get the young family to 

 follow to a suitable perching place for the night. When 

 this is at last accomplished, one may, with great caution, 

 get a peep at them all in a row, with an old bird at each 

 end. Low, dense, broad-leaved shrubs, eucalyptus trees if 

 low, or dense masses of broad-leaved sword grass are 

 the usual camps chosen. Young wrens seem to lose 

 their early notes about the time they have fully acquired 

 the song. July and August are the earliest months in 

 which I have detected the young wrens practising the 

 song, though to some it may come earlier than others. 

 Besides the song there are the notes of alarm, harsh and 

 quick, the low note of satisfaction uttered at every peck at 

 an insect, especially when the family has alighted on a 

 good patch, and sometimes, not often, a low, melancholy 

 note uttered at each series of hops. In spring the males 

 sometimes make a continued utterance of what is like half 

 the usual song. One use of the song is to keep the family 

 together and acquaint each other of their whereabouts. 

 You may often see a wren which has been left behind 

 mount the topmost twig of a bush and sing till answered 

 from a distance. Then it will fly ofi* in that direction and 

 rejoin the others. Gould's Wren is not gregarious, though 

 two or three females may hunt over each other's ground. 

 They never join in a community like the tits and chats, 

 but each family keeps, if it can, to its own particular 



