990) LAND BIRDS 
California Breeding Range: West of the Sierra Nevada, in suitable 
localities. 
Breeding Season: June and July. 
Nest : Large oval ball, attached to tule stems ; composed of wet tules, 
marsh grass, and pond weed matted together ; lined with tule pith and 
dry alge. Entrance at one side. 
Eggs: 3 to 5; pinkish brown, clouded with darker. 
To know the Tule Wren you must go to the tall reeds 
of a lowland marsh and live for hours each day with him. 
He will protest with all the force of his little throat 
against your intrusion and will call all his neighbors to 
the scene. Clinging to the slender tule, with much tail- 
bobbing and attitudinizing, he challenges you angrily and, 
were he as big as he is brave, you would never venture 
further. His nests are many, all dummy save one, but 
you will not be able to guess which that one may be. I 
have examined thirty in one day and found but one occu- 
pied, and that was the oldest, most tumble-down of the 
lot. With undiminished vigor he sings and works, car- 
rying wet marsh vegetation and weaving it among the 
rushes into a ball many times the size of his industrious 
little self. His mate is already brooding in one of those 
nests which he made last year, but that is no reason, 
according to his way of thinking, why he should not 
keep busy making more. So, resting only long enough 
to satisfy his hunger, he keeps on with his self-appointed 
task from morning until night, singing as he goes the 
merriest, maddest medley of banjo-like notes. 
Each nest is lined with pith of the tules, which is 
exactly like cat-tail down of the East, but the one con- 
taining the purplish brown eggs is padded very carefully 
with this material. These nests are conspicuous objects 
