THREE BEECHES. 195 



tain females among the spectators ; but happening, as it 

 did, in midwinter, it had all the appearance to me of a 

 kind of amusement which is probably indulged in but 

 seldom. 



Last July I spent a memorable morning under these 

 beeches. Something had gone wrong with the birds, and 

 the occupants of two neighboring wren-boxes were dis- 

 cussing the situation. There was no quarreling, but the 

 primp and prompt wrens were in great earnest, as their 

 chattering and the energetic bobbing of heads and tails 

 plainly indicated. My first impression was that the occu- 

 pants of one house had trespassed upon the domains of the 

 other, and this is a thing that no wren will tolerate for a 

 moment. When two or more pairs of them have nests in 

 close proximity, they parcel out the immediate surround- 

 ings, and each, when foraging, limits itself to a range 

 that does not approach the others' houses very closely. 

 If such a thing does occur, nine times in ten there's a 

 row. 



The wrens in the beeches that July morning, how- 

 ever, had a common cause to discuss, and their utterances 

 and actions were wholly different from any sounds I had 

 heard before, coming even from an excited wren. Had 

 I not seen the birds, I doubt if I should have recognized 

 their voices. After some five minutes or more of most 

 animated discussion, a plan of action was decided upon ; 

 at least, the wrens left the beeches in company, and. I 

 was not slow to follow. They returned as I supposed 

 they would to the house of one of the pairs of wrens, 

 and settled upon its roof and upon the little perch at the 

 entrance. When I came to the spot, I saw, at a glance, 

 wherein the trouble lay. A pestiferous English sparrow 

 had taken possession of the box, and " cleaned out " the 

 wrens. The sorry interloper was at the time inside, and 



