TROGLODYTID^E THE WRENS AND MOCKING-THBUSHES. 93 



heard. Not a voluble gabble, like the House Wren's merry rounde- 

 lay, but a fine, clear, bold song, uttered as the singer sits with head 

 thrown back and long tail pendent, a song which may be heard a 

 quarter of a mile or more, and in comparison with which the faint 

 chant of the Song Sparrow sinks into insignificance. The ordinary 

 note is a soft low plit, uttered as the bird hops about, its long tail 

 carried erect or even leaning forward, and jerked to one side at 

 short intervals. In its movements it is altogether more deliberate 

 than either T. Indovicianus or T. aedon, but nothing can excel it in 

 quickness when it is pursued. 



The nest of Bewick's Wren is placed in all sorts of odd places. 

 Usually it is in a mortise-hole of a beam or joist, or some well- 

 concealed corner. One was beneath the board covering of an ash- 

 hopper; another, in a joint of stovepipe which lay horizontally 

 across two joists in the garret of a smoke-house ; a third was behind 

 the weather-boarding of an ice-house, while a fourth was in the 

 bottom of the conical portion of a quail-net that had been hung up 

 against the inner side of a buggy shed. None of these nests would 

 have been found had not the bird been seen to enter. 



The nest is generally very bulky, though its size is regulated by 

 that of the cavity in which it is placed. Its materials consist % of 

 sticks, straw, coarse feathers, fine chips, etc., matted together with 

 spiders' webs, and lined with tow and soft feathers of barnyard 

 fowls. The eggs are usually seven to nine in number, but occa- 

 sionally more,* and are white, rather sparsely speckled round the 

 larger end with brown. 



Mr. Nelson records the breeding of this species in the extreme 

 northern part of tha State, as follows: 



"A pair of these birds appeared in a vacant lot in Chicago the 

 first of June, 1876, and taking possession of a convenient corner in 

 the roof of an arbor proceeded to raise their young. At intervals 

 through the day the male would mount to the top of some house, 

 or the topmost twig of a tree in the vicinity, and sing for an hour 

 or more. The family suddenly left about the middle of July." 



*Mrs. Mary A. Turner, of Mt Carmel, sent to the National Museum a nest of this species 

 containing eleven eggs. 



