366 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



229. Thryothorus ludovicianus (Lath.). 

 Carolina Wren. 



Rare and perhaps only casual visitor from the south. 



On September 27, 1891, a Carolina Wren was shot by Mr. C. F. Batchelder 

 in the grounds about his house on Kirkland Street, Cambridge. "The bird was 

 an adult male and was in fine condition. He had been in the neighborhood for 

 nearly a week and possibly longer, and was frequently to be heard calling or 

 singing. The spot seemed to be to his taste," for it afforded a range through 

 several adjoining gardens filled with shrubbery and trees besides " an extensive 

 pile of firewood and odds and ends of lumber the attractions of which he seems 

 to have been the first to discover." ^ 



On May 4, 1902, Mr. Ralph Hoffmann found a Carolina Wren in an orchard 

 near the eastern end of Rock Meadow. " The bird was singing freely. The 

 people in the house near by said that they had heard him about the place for 

 three or four days." ^ He was neither seen nor heard after the date just 

 mentioned. 



Early the following spring (that of 1903) Mr. Hoffmann again met with a 

 male Carolina Wren in Belmont — at a locahty more than a mile distant from 

 Rock Meadow and not far from Payson Park. A farmer living in the neighbor- 

 hood asserted that the bird had appeared there about March i, but it was first 

 seen by Mr. Hoffmann on the 7th of the month. From this date to the close 

 of May it was noted every few days by one or another of our local observers, 

 and invariably in nearly the same place, for the total area covered by its daily 

 wanderings did not exceed two or three acres. It was very tame and familiar, 

 spending the greater part of its time in a yard surrounded by farm buildings 

 and in a neighboring pear orchard. Its favorite singing station was among the 

 upper branches of a large pollarded willow that stood close to an old shed under 

 which, in an open space half filled with rubbish, the bird would occasionally seek 

 shelter when disturbed. I saw it in all these places on the morning of March 

 20, when it was singing freely. 



It is possible, of course, that the Wren last mentioned was the same indi- 

 vidual as that seen by Mr. Hoffmann at Rock Meadow in 1902 and still more 



1 C. F. Batchelder, Auk, IX, 1892, 73. 

 ■■' R. Hoffmann, Auk, XIX, 1902, 292. 



