424 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to nine eggs, nearly spherical in form, and so densely covered with 

 small, reddish-brown spots as to almost hide the white ground- 

 color. 



The character of the house wren can be described in a few words: 

 noisy, active, inquisitive and combative. Its song is hard to de- 

 scribe, yet once heard is not easily forgotten. It consists of a sharp 

 chatter of wavering notes so quickly uttered as almost to seem a 

 prolonged and highly modulated, sometimes squeaky, trill, now 

 soft and now piercing. Early in the season the male executes not 

 unfrequently a pleasing fantasia on the wing. 



To attract these useful birds to the vicinity of my house, I con- 

 structed last year some small boxes, which were fastened to neigh- 

 boring oak trees. These were occupied by two pairs of wrens, but 

 they left without raising a family, very likely too much disturbed 

 by the English sparrows and by the cat. This summer I had made 

 in a pottery a number of bird houses. These houses, made of 

 burned clay, prevent anj'- moisture from reaching the inside, and as 

 the entrance is quite small larger birds cannot force their way in. 

 This caused quite a disturbance among the resident sparrows, and 

 for many days they held a sort of indignation meeting, in which 

 they complained about the absurd architecture of such small 

 houses, and not unfrequently a more imprudent gentleman spar- 

 row tried to force his way into one of the houses but failed, and 

 showed his displeasure by using the most profane sparrow-expres- 

 sions we know of. Of the twelve bird houses fastened to the house, 

 barn and trees, eleven were occupied by wrens, which produced at 

 least two broods of five birds each; in other words, the eleven pairs 

 of wrens had to provide for themselves and for a hundred and ten 

 hungry birds. Now this means the death of a large number of in- 

 sects. 



The first brood had to be fed in the nest from about June 1st to the 

 15th. and the second brood from July 1st to the Mth. The young 

 birds refused all food but insects, and a piece of soft bread carried 

 to the nest by the male was refused and thrown out of the nest. The 

 food consumed by the first brood consisted mainlj^ of small beetles, 

 young grasshoppers, crickets and the caterpillars lialf an inch and 

 more in length so common among grass. The second brood was fed 

 almost entirely with small caterpillars and the larvae of saw-flies. 

 The old birds are most active in providing food for their young 

 from five to nine in the morning and from four to seven in the af- 

 ternoon, at which time each one makes at least one trip every five 

 minutes. A calculation based upon these facts shows that at least 

 1,875 insects are required for the five young birds of each genera- 

 tion, or the amazing number of 41,250 insects had to be brought to 

 the nests of the young birds raised in these bird houses. This does 

 not include, however, the food consuined by the twenty-two adults 

 nor that consumed by the young after they had left the nest but 

 were still found in its vicinity. 



Now, the question arises, what was the relation of this large num- 

 ber of insects to the cultivated plants grown in the vicinity of the 

 house? As I did not wish to kill my pets I could only study the in- 



