TROGLODYTID^ THE WRENS AND MOCKING-THRUSHE8. 101 



thrust forward, that he assumes almost the shape of an irregular 

 ring or triangle, and so quite deceives one as to the length of his 

 slender body. * * * His flight is short, and every motion 

 is exceedingly quick and nervous. 



'In the tall bleached selges of the previous year, this Wren is 

 very easily seen in May or early in June. Then he is especially 

 lively, hanging sidewise to the smooth perpendicular culms, or 

 grasping two opposite ones, one in each wiry foot, his legs stretched 

 apart in a horizontal line; or tossing himself up several feet into 

 the air, with head and tail up, he will drop down, with a light and 

 graceful flutter, making his very best attempt at a song as he thus 

 describes an abrupt curve. That song begins with a rather harsh 

 screeping note, followed by a rattling twitter, and ends in a note 

 very much like that with which it began. 



"Pulling the boat somewhat into the sedges, we wade among them 

 half way to the knees in water. Here is the nest! About the size 

 of a common cocoanut, it is woven and interlaced by the dried and 

 discolored leaves of the sedges and marsh-grass, intermixed with 

 vegetable down, and sometimes with an abundance of green moss, 

 so as to make the walls quite thick and firm, and is lined with 

 finer materials perhaps the down from a vacated Duck's nest in 

 the neighborhood, or the feathers of a Coot devoured by the Marsh 

 Hawk; it has a hole in the side, so beset with down as almost to 

 close it up the artistic structure being hung to the green or dried 

 sedges or marsh-grass only a few inches, or sometimes three or four 

 feet from the water. These nests are often found in large numbers 

 in the same locality, the greater part of them being unoccupied." 



AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY 



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