80 BULLETIN OF THE NUTTALL 



But it seems that here, at least, one extra nest is sometimes used 

 for the purpose of raising an additional family by a single pair of 

 wrens simultaneously with the first brood ! This would scarcely 

 appear credible if not made certain by close observation of the pair 

 during the whole breeding season, while no others were seen within 

 a circuit of a quarter of a mile. Like all other summer visitors, 

 these birds arrived much later this year than last, none appearing 

 until about April 20, though some winter within one hundred miles 

 to the southward. Whether the same pair returned, mentioned to 

 have built here last year (in my article in the " American Natural- 

 ist " for February, 1876, p. 90), is uncertain. I believe that one of 

 that pair was killed by a cat, and the brood of young were certainly 

 destroyed, June 14, by an unusually late and heavy rain, which ran 

 from the eaves of my house into their box, after which the remain- 

 ing parent bird disappeared. The present pair, however, lost no 

 time in building, and, as if suspicious of their former home, built 

 first in a house on the top of a post twelve feet high, which was 

 occupied by a pair of Hirundo bicolor last summer. As soon as the 

 nest was finished, the male began to build another in the old resi- 

 dence, which I had moved to a safer place, where rain could not 

 reach it. The female rarely assisted in this work, though I occa- 

 sionally saw both there, and in due time the second nest was 

 finished. Soon after the young in the first nest were hatched, and 

 although needing much attention, the old birds still frequented the 

 new nest, and I began to suspect that one of them was sitting on 

 eggs there. This suspicion was soon verified by hearing the young, 

 and seeing them fed. ' In this case each parent must have been 

 sitting at the same time on a nest, perhaps taking turns, during the 

 week that elapsed before the first hatching. 



The day after the first brood of six left its house, they reappeared 

 at evening under the lead of the female, and all roosted there, the 

 male meanwhile continuing to feed the other brood, and singing at 

 almost every visit to them, from which circumstance I distinguished 

 him. The next day, however, he seems to have taken charge of the 

 fledged family and led them away to the groves, out of the reach of 

 town cats, as after that the songless female alone attended to the 

 remaining brood. 



As confirming the probability of one pair being able to raise two 

 broods, I may quote from Dr. Brewer the experiment by which one 

 female was induced to lay twenty-five eggs in one season, eighteen 



