98 Mr. Nuttall’s Remarks and Inquiries 
OWEN, 
Short-Billed Marsh-Wren. 
Troglodytes *brevirostris. In this the bill is much shorter than 
the head, the plumage above a mixture of black, pale brown, 
and whitish; the wings are also barred with the same colors, and 
the head likewise striated; beneath, except the white throat 
and centre of the breast, the color is pale rufous. — This amu- 
sing and musical little species inhabits the lowest marshy mead- 
ows and swamps, but does not frequent the reeds. It never 
visits cultivated grounds, and is at all times shy, timid, and 
suspicious. Its nest is made wholly of dry or partly green 
sedge-grass, bent mostly from the top of the tussuck on 
which the fabric is situated. With much ingenuity and labor 
these simple materials are entwined loosely together into the 
form of a cocoa-nut or sphere, with a small and rather obscure 
entrance left in the side. No mud is employed in the construction, 
as with the ordinary Marsh-Wren; and the eggs, instead of 
dark rufous or chesnut color, are pure white and spotless. It is 
a singular fact, in the history of this species, that, notwithstanding 
