The Carolina Wren 37 



bird will easily admit those grasping monop- 

 olists ; but Jenny Wren is safe, if she did but 

 know it, in her house with its tiny front door 

 It is amusing to see a sparrow try to work his 

 shoulders through the small hole of an empty 

 wren house, pushing and kicking madly, but 

 all in vain. 



What rent do the wrens pay for their little 

 houses? No man is clever enough to estimate 

 the vast numbers of insects on your place that 

 they destroy. They eat nothing else, which is 

 the chief reason why they are so lively and 

 excitable. Unable to soar after flying insects 

 because of their short, round wings, they keep, 

 as a rule, rather close to the ground which their 

 finely barred brown feathers so closely match. 

 Whether hunting for grubs in the wood-pile, 

 scrambling over the brush heap after spiders, 

 searching among the trees to provide a dinner 

 for their large families, or creeping, like little 

 feathered mice, in queer nooks and crannies 

 among the outbuildings on the farm, they are 

 always busy in your interest which is also theirs. 

 It certainly pays, in every sense, to encourage 

 wrens. 



THE CAROLINA WREN 



The house wrens have a tiny cousin, a mite of 

 a bird, called the winter wren, that is so shy 



