586 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



taken June 7, 1896. It was composed of dry grass, leaves, 

 twigs and similar material, lined with fine black roots, and 

 was situated in an old hollow log. The eggs measure 0.76 x 

 0.58, 0.74x0,58, 0.76x0.58, 0.75x0.58, 0.74x0.58. In 

 color various sets vary from whitish to salmon buff, sprinkled, 

 spotted and often wreathed with reddish brown, pinkish and 

 lavender. Four to six, generally five eggs are laid. Davie 

 states that in central Ohio the nest is a massive coarse struc- 

 ture, made of strips of corn stalks, grasses, hay and leaves, 

 lined with chicken feathers, fine dry grasses and horsehair. 

 The nests are usually quite bulky, and some are arched over 

 or dome shaped. 



Genus TROGLODYTES Vieillot. 

 Subgenus TROGLODYTES. 



721. Troglodytes aedon Vieill. House Wren. 



Plumage : above cinnamon olive brown, slightly more reddish on rump and 

 tail ; indistinctly barred on back ; wings and tail finely barred with dusky » 

 below whitish with rather obscure bars of pale drab on the throat and sides, 

 and bold bars of black on the flanks. Wing 2.00 ; tail 1.80 ; culmen 0.50. 



Geog. Distribution. — Eastern United States and southern Ontario ; breed- 

 ing north to Manitoba, Montreal and New Brunswick ; wintering from South 

 Carolina southward. 



County Records. — Androscoggin ; tolerably common summer resident, 

 (Call) ; rare summer resident now, (Swain). Aroostook; August 10, 1898, a 

 nest was found containing four young birds near Caribou, (Allen, J. M. O. S. 

 1901, p. 12). Cumberland; not seen in many years, formerly occvured, 

 (Mead); saw several pairs in 1900, evidently breeding, (Swain). Franklin; 

 a pair seen in 1896, evidently breeding, (Swain). Hancock; some years ago 

 a pair built in a bird house in my yard, (Dorr). Kennebec; (Hamlin, L. 

 B. W. R. S. Me. B. A. 1865, pp. 168-173). Knox ; formerly occasional visit- 

 ant, (Norton). Oxford; breeds commonly, (Nash). Penobscot; formerly 

 nested in Bangor, not known to occur here for twenty years, (Knight). 

 (Somerset); rare summer resident, (Morrell). Washington; rare here, 

 (Boardman). 



In my boyhood days the House Wren was a common bird 



near Bangor, arriving about May eighth and remaining until 



late August, but at the advent of the English Sparrow the 



