lyo The Wren. 



and when moulting, the Wren's song may ahva3-s be heard ; it is loud and brilliant, 

 rather than melodious. 



When breeding, and it is an early breeder, there is no British bird more 

 jealous of its nest : to be seen watching a Wren at work is often suflScieut to 

 condemn the half-completed building, a fact which I have proved by actual 

 experiment : this excessive nervousness is probably the sole cause for the many 

 imperfect or deserted nests which occur, and which are supposed by rustics to be 

 purposely constructed as roosting-places for the male birds. But, after all, the 

 same notion has been countenanced, even by scientific men, respecting the incom- 

 plete nests formed bj^ unpaired males of the Ba3-a Weaver ; whereas, in the latter 

 case, the nest is al\va3^s completed by the combined labours of both sexes, and 

 apparently cannot be managed by one sex unaided. 



Only once was I ever successful in removing eggs from a Wren's nest, 

 without causing desertion ; and then I chanced to discover some small oval white 

 pebbles close to the gorse-bush in which the nest was suspended, and substituted 

 them for the eggs ; but I was very careful not to touch the nest with my fingers, 

 using a metal spoon to remove the eggs. The hen bird was evidently far away 

 at the time ; for, had she seen me, I do not believe she would have continued to 

 lay ; as she certainl}' did. 



On the other hand Mr. Reginald Phillipps says that he has known of a nest, 

 which had had a clutch removed, used again, even though the eggs of the second 

 clutch were removed every day as they were laid. If he had said that he himself 

 had taken part in or even witnessed this extraordinary' feat, I should have felt 

 bound to regard it as a very remarkable and entirely unparalleled fact ; as it is 

 — well, my experience is diametrically' opposed to that of his informant. The 

 Blue-Tit, which is one of the most confiding of birds, is often confounded with 

 the Wren, and doubtless many tales told of the latter relate to the former. 



I have found nests of the W^ren built in the following sites : — in hedges ; 

 hawthorn-bushes ; furze ; laurels ; in ivy on walls, or clambering round the entrances 

 to caves or grottoes ; against trunks of trees, either openly near the ground or 

 higher up in the trailing ivy ; in brambles and straggling scrub in woods, where 

 masses of the previous year's leaves have collected in the vines ; under overhanging 

 edges of steep banks ; in faggot-, clover-, or hay-stacks ; under projecting thatches 

 of sheds and outhouses ; upon a beam in a barn : but never in holes. 



In the materials used for the nest, the W^ren appears to select usuall}' such 

 as will tend to conceal it ; the fact being that it builds ver}' largely with those 

 which are most hand}' ; thus nests bedded in heaps of dead leaves are externally 

 largely constructed of leaves, those in evergreen shrubs are also usually formed of 



