FIRST-COMERS. 41 



tip, for thd wrens are regular buccaneers, with no more 

 heart or conscience than a walnut ; nevertheless, the blue- 

 birds are far better fighters than one would suspect them 

 to be, as the English sparrow has learned at the cost of 

 many a sore spot. 



This same house-wren is so well known that I need only 

 allude to him ; and any further description than to say that 

 lie is the wee brown bird, about as large as your thumb, 

 which frequents the garden bird-boxes and the barn, is un- 

 necessary. He comes early and stays late. He makes him- 

 self at home immediately, and is everywhere present, bus- 

 tling about outhouses and barns, rapidly building his nest in 

 the most insecure and unfrequented places, like the sleeve 

 of an old coat left in the barn, or a lantern hung against 

 the woodshed ; and, if it is repeatedly pulled down, as of- 

 ten rebuilding it, literally "pitching into" other wrens, and 

 bluebirds, and swallows, whom he considers trespassers on 

 his right to the whole garden, and fighting so audaciously 

 and persistently as nearly always to come off victor; squeak- 

 ing in and out of every crevice, with his comical tail at half- 

 cock; inquiring into every other living thing's business, yet 

 not neglecting his own, this little bobbing bunch of brown 

 excitement is the very spirit of impudence. 



The wren does not confine himself altogether to the 



