Species IV. CERT HI A PALUSTRIS. 



MARSH WREN. 



[Plato XII. Fig. 4.] 

 Motacilla palusiris (j-fif/wZtis minor), Bartram, p. 291. 



This obscure but spirited little species has been almost overlooked 

 by the naturalists of Europe, as well as by those of its own country. 

 The singular attitude in which it is represented will be recognised by 

 those acquainted with its manners, as one of its most common and 

 favorite ones, while skipping through among the reeds and rushes. The 

 Marsh Wren arrives in Pennsylvania about the middle of May, or as 

 soon as the reeds and a species of Nympliea, 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 larvse, and a species of green 

 grasshoppers that inhabit 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, something similar to that produced by air bub- 

 bles 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 everything, and yet each, perhaps, 

 has something peculiarly his own ; so among birds we find a like dis- 

 tribution 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 

 brethren. This is formed outwardly of wet rushes mixed with mud, 

 well intertwisted, and fashioned into the form of a cocoa nut. 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 among the reeds, above the reach of 

 the highest tides, and is tied so fast in every part to the surrounding 

 reeds, as to bid defiance to the winds and the waves. The eggs are 



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