WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



pointed if the house-wrens utterly dispossess the 

 bluebirds of the houses you have pul up, for the 

 wrens are regular buccaneers, with no more heart 

 or conscience than a walnut; nevertheless, the 

 bluebirds are far better fighters than one would 

 suspect them to be, as the English sparrow has 

 learned at the cost of many a sore spot. 



This same house-wren is so well known that I 

 need only to allude to him; and any further de- 

 scription than to say that he is the wee brown bird, 

 about as large as your thumb, which frequents the 

 garden bird -boxes and the barn, is unnecessary. 

 He comes early and stays late. He makes himself 

 at home immediately, and is everywhere present, 

 bustling about outhouses and barns, rapidly build- 

 ing his nest in the most insecure and unfrequented 

 places, like the sleeve of an old coat left in the barn, 

 or a lantern hung against the woodshed; and, if 

 it is repeatedly pulled down, as often rebuilding 

 it ; literally '' pitching into '' other wrens and blue- 

 birds and swallows, whom he considers trespass- 

 ers on his right to the whole garden, and fighting 

 so audaciously and persistently as nearly always 

 to come off victor; squeaking in and out of every 

 crevice, with his comical tail at half-cock ; inquiring 

 into every other living thing's business, yet not 



126 



