46 THE BIRDS ABOUT Us. 



merely during the twilight, but long after the sun has 

 set and stars are visible. In the summer of 1893 I 

 heard one singing long after twilight, while passing 

 a dense growth of rhododendrons on the water's 

 edge. There was no moon, and the general hush 

 that rested over the landscape indicated that no dis- 

 turbance of the locality had occurred. The notes 

 were many, varied, and in full tone, and not the 

 drawn-out ones that indicate the bird is singing in its 

 sleep. 



Bewick's wren is a Western species that bears a 

 close resemblance to the Carolina, but is slightly 

 smaller, and not nearly so fine a singer. Its general 

 habits are about the same. 



Holding prominent place among the small birds of 

 the far West is the Cactus-wren. 



Dr. Coues says of this bird, 



" The English name which the ' Cactus'-wren has acquired indi- 

 cates the nature of its customary resorts, and affords a hint of its 

 peculiar nidification. As we have already seen, several of the Ari- 

 zona birds are architects of singular skill and taste ; the Cactus-wren 

 is one of them. In the most arid and desolate regions of the South- 

 west, where the cacti flourish with wonderful luxuriance, covering the 

 impoverished tracts of volcanic dtbris with a kind of vegetation only 

 less surly and forbidding than the very scoria, this wren makes its 

 home, and places its nests on every hand in the thorny embrace of the 

 repulsive vegetation. True to the instincts and traditions of the 

 wren family, it builds a bulky and conspicuous domicile ; and when 

 many are breeding together, the structures become as noticeable as 

 the nests which a colony of marsh-wrens build in the heart of the 

 swaying reeds." 



Probably no two small birds common to the East- 

 ern States, and found in almost every reedy meadow, 

 are so little known to people generally as the Marsh- 



