590 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



resident, occurring likewise on some of the larger wooded islands 

 of the coast as a breeding bird, among which islands I would 

 mention Islesboro, Deer Island, Little Deer Island and Mount 

 Desert. 



The species is seldom seen in migration unless sought by 

 those knowing its habits and fully aware just where to seek it. 



They are of lowly habits, in migration seeking bushy 

 ^ pastures, brush heaps, bushy roadside thickets, stone walls, 

 hedgerows and thick swampy tracts. Here they skulk throu^ 

 the undergrowth, now appearing with twitching tail and 

 wings, but hopping quickly out of sight again. Occasionally 

 they will at such times utter a rasping, chirring, scolding 

 sound. In the summer they must be sought in the deeper, 

 denser, evergreen woods and swampy mixed growth. 



An occasional pair nest in the smaller groves near Bangor 

 where a patch of dense, wet, mossy carpeted growth still remains, 

 but go a few miles away into the deeper woods and they will 

 be found common, and thence through the wilds of northern 

 and eastern Maine they are frequently heard in the summer. 

 The rich, wild, sweet, babbling, indescribable song is character- 

 istic and unmistakable. I had full rather stake my identification 

 of the species on the song than on a fleeting or even compar- 

 atively good view of the living bird. Here and there in the 

 woods rises this song, beginning meek and lowly and gaining 

 in sweetness and character to its completion, and one songster 

 answers another. It is harder to get a view of the birds 

 themselves, even when the sounds indicate that the woods con- 

 tain a number of them. 



As to their nests, I shall never forget the day when in the 

 mossy carpeted woods back of the University of Maine I saw a 

 Winter Wren enter a round hole at the base of a mossy stump. 

 On approaching the place I discovered the nest, a neat struct- 

 ure of green sphagnum moss, held together with fine spruce 

 and hemlock twigs, the only means of entrance to which was a 

 neat round hole on the side. This nest was placed in a place 



