98 TROGLODYTID^ : WRENS. 



tively few of its nests have come to the notice of natu- 

 ralists. "Five eggs, not quite fresh, which I took 

 from a nest on the White Mountains on the 23d of July 

 (probably those of a second set), were pure crystal- 

 white, thinly and minutely speckled with bright reddish- 

 brown, and averaging about .70X .55 of an inch. The 

 nest, thickly lined with feathers of the Ruffed Grouse, 

 was in a low moss-covered stump, about a foot high, in 

 a dark swampy forest, filled with tangled piles of fallen 

 trees and branches. The entrance to the nest, on one 

 side, was very narrow, its diameter being less than an 

 inch, and was covered with an overhanging bit of 

 moss, which the bird was obliged to push up on going 

 in" {Minot, B. N. E., 1877, p. 72). A nest described 

 by Dr. Brewer was built in a crevice of an occupied 

 log-hut, among fir-leaves and mosses ; it contained six 

 eggs, measuring 0.65 by 0.48, spotted with bright red- 

 dish-brown and a few pale purplish markings, on a 

 pure white ground. Mr. Ruthven Deane describes 

 three nests from Houlton, Maine, in one of which 

 there were six young early in June, and in another 

 four eggs on August 8th (Bull. Nuttall Club, iv, 1879, 

 p. 37). The last was a beautiful piece of bird-archi- 

 tecture, composed mainly of compact green moss, with 

 which a few hemlock twigs were interwoven, and lined 

 thickly with feathers of the Canada Grouse, Blue Jay, 

 and other birds. All three were found in similar situ- 

 ations, in the debris about fallen trees. The Winter 

 Wren appears to be more abundant on its breeding 

 grounds in Maine and New Hampshire than elsewhere 

 in New England at any other season : see, for exam- 

 ple, Mr. Maynard's notice in Pr. Bost. Soc, xiv, for 

 October, 1871, p. 360. 



J 



