BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD. 49 



to a late period in the summer, and may be heard some- 

 times in the third week in August. 



THE WINTER-WREN. 



We do not often meet with this bird near Boston in 

 summer. He is then a resident of the northern parts of 

 Maine and New Hampshire, and of the Green Mountain 

 range. In the autumn he migrates from the north and 

 may be occasionally seen in company with our other win- 

 ter birds. In our own latitude, if the cold season drives 

 him farther south, we meet him again early in the spring, 

 making his journey to his northern home. While he 

 remains with us we see him near the shelving banks of 

 rivers, creeping about old stumps of trees, which, half de- 

 cayed, furnish a frugal share of his dormant insect-food. 

 He is so little afraid of man that he will often leave his 

 native resorts, and may be seen, like our common House- 

 Wren, examining the wood-pile, creeping into the holes 

 of old stone-walls and about the foundations of out-houses. 

 Not having seen this bird except in winter, I am unac- 

 quainted with his song. Samuels describes it as very 

 melodious and delightful. 



THE MARSH WREN. 



I was once crossing by turnpike an extensive meadow 

 which was overgrown with reeds and rushes, when my 

 curiosity was excited by hearing, in a thicket on the 

 banks of a streamlet, a sound that would hardly admit of 

 being described. I could not tell whether it came from 

 an asthmatic bird or an aggravated frog. The sound was 

 unlike anything I had ever heard. I should have sup- 

 posed, however, if there were Mocking-Birds in our woods, 

 that one of them had concealed himself in the thicket and 

 was attempting to imitate the braying of an ass. I sat 

 down upon the railing of a rustic bridge that crossed the 



