482 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Distribution. The House wren inhabits eastern North America from 

 Wisconsin, Michigan, central Ontario, southern Quebec and New Bruns- 

 wick, to Kentucky and Virginia; winters in the South Atlantic and Gulf 

 States. In New York it is a common summer resident except in the 

 Canadian zone, arriving in the spring from the 2ist to the 3Oth of April 

 in the southern portion, from the ist to the loth of May in northern New 

 York, and disappearing in the fall from the ist to the I4th of October. 



Haunts and habits. The House wren, as nearly everyone knows, 

 inhabits gardens and orchards, especially the neglected garden and the old 

 unkempt orchard. It is also found about the edges of woods and some- 

 times even in the forest or in the midst of swamps where there is a small 

 opening, and dead trees and stumps, brush heaps and fallen trees are 

 abundant. During the last 25 years this species has exhibited periods of 

 scarcity in central and western New York. Ralph and Bagg refer to its 

 disappearance in Oneida county between the years 1887 to 1893. I have 

 noticed a similar disappearance of this species farther west in the State 

 during the early nineties, and it has only regained its old-time abundance 

 within the last 7 years in Ontario, Monroe and Erie counties. During 

 the summer of 1897 I noticed again that it was unusually scarce in many 

 of the towns of western New York. In fact, I heard only two wrens singing 

 during that summer one in the midst of Bergen swamp far from the 

 habitations of man, and one on the streets of Albion. In localities where 

 dozens of wrens might be heard in the summer of 1912, not a single wren 

 song was audible in 1896-7. It is possible that some calamity happened 

 to the species in its winter quarters in the South just as happened to the 

 Bluebird during the winter of 1895, and again during the winter of 1911-12; 

 but many have explained this disappearance of the House wren by the 

 increase of the English sparrow and the occupation of all the wrens' nesting 

 sites about the towns, villages and country homes. I have noticed that 

 the English sparrow, by filling wren houses and cavities with its nesting 

 materials before the wren has returned in the spring, has had an unfavorable 

 influence upon this species, as has also occurred in the case of the Bluebird 



