286 LAND BIRDS 
full of enthusiasm at the day’s close as he was at its be- 
ginning. He is very friendly and sociable, allowing you 
to watch him, and watching you with equal interest. 
When nest-building commences it absorbs the atten- 
tion of both sexes, though the master of the household 
still sings between loads. Such a mass of material they 
manage to gather! Shreds of bark, twigs, feathers 
galore, straw, and often bits of plant-down, such as cotton. 
The cavity is stuffed to its fullest capacity, and in the top 
of the mass madam shapes a shallow cup to hold the 
eggs. But these Wrens are capricious folk, and after the 
nest is all ready they will often take a vacation and pay 
no further attention to it for several days, or even a week. 
Then, one day, you may see the female slipping slyly into 
the nest hole while her mate sings louder than ever near 
by, and you conclude rightly that the first egg has been 
laid. She may lay another the next day or she may wait 
a day or two, but as soon as there are five or six, she will 
commence to brood. Fourteen days are necessary for 
the incubation of those small eggs, and, at the end of that 
time, a peep into the nest will reveal tiny, naked nest- 
lings, a trifle less than one inch long, with knobs for eyes 
and little more than mere slits for beaks. Their wing- 
bones are about one-sixth of an inch in length, and their 
legs are not much longer. But they double their weight 
every twenty-four hours, and at the end of four days they 
have down on heads and along the feather tracts, and 
look much more like birds. The beak also has taken 
shape and is more or less firmly cartilaginous. On the fifth 
day the eyes open. Up to this time they have been fed 
