100 BIRDS OF ILLINOIS. 



The song of this species resembles somewhat that of the House 

 Wren, but is much less agreeable, having a peculiar sputtering or 

 scolding character. 



Mr. Nelson, in his list of the birds of northeastern Illinois, refers 

 to the Long-billed Marsh Wren as follows: 



"Abundant summer resident in marshy localities. Arrives the 

 first of May, nests the last of this month to the first of August. I 

 have seen hundreds of the nests of this species, but have yet to see 

 one attached to a bush in the manner described in Baird, Brewer 

 and Ridgway's 'North American Birds' (Vol. 1, p. 162). The nests 

 I have seen have almost invariably been placed in the middle of 

 tall bulrushes, or wild rice, growing upon a more or less submerged 

 marsh, and are supported about two feet above the surface, by 

 being firmly attached to several of the surrounding stalks, some- 

 thing in the manner of the attachment of the Red-winged Black- 

 bird's nest. The structure of the nests agrees with the description 

 in the above-named work, with the exception of mud never being 

 used in nests I have examined. While the female is incubating, the 

 male is almost constantly employed upon the construction of several 

 unfinished nests, until often a pair may boast the possession of a 

 dozen unoccupied tenements. The supernumerary nests are less 

 substantial structures than the one occupied, and are built indif- 

 ferently of the living or dead grass leaves, the latter being almost 

 exclusively used in the structure occupied." 



"In the sedges and cat-tails, which border the placid current as 

 it approaches the lake," writes the author of "Our Birds in their 

 Haunts," "are the breeding haunts of quite a group of birds which 

 frequent the water and the vicinity in this locality. As one glides 

 along these waters in a light skiff, on a fine June morning, admiring 

 the trees, shrubs, vines and wild flowers which adorn the graceful 

 curves of the bluff on either side, from out the sedges and cat-tails 

 there comes the sharp metallic twitter of the Long-billed Marsh 

 Wren (Telmatodytes palustris). You strain your eyes to get a glimpse 

 of the utterer of these weird notes, but he is completely concealed 

 in the tall, thick growths, and dodges about so mysteriously that 

 you can scarcely keep the direction of the sounds. There ! Now he 

 is in plain sight, clinging sidewise to that huge cat-tail overtopped 

 by its candle-shaped blossom. What a wee bit of a bird he is, 

 seeming scarcely larger than the end of one's thumb, though, from 

 the tip of the bill to the extremity of the tail, he measures some 

 five inches or more ; but the head is so thrown up, and the tail so 



