SPECIES 4. CERTHM PtfLUSTRIS, 

 MARSH WREN. 



[Plate XII. Fig. 4.]. 



Mutacilla palustris (regulus minor), BAKTRAM, p. 291. PK ALE'S 

 Museum, JVo. 7282. 



THIS obscure but spirited little species has been almost over- 

 looked by the naturalists of Europe, as well as by those of its 

 own country. The singular attitude in which it is represented 

 will be recognized by those acquainted with its manners, as one 

 of its most common and favourite ones, while skipping through 

 among the reeds and rushes. The Marsh Wren arrives in 

 Pennsylvania about the middle of May, or as soon as the reeds 

 and a species of Nymphea, usually called splatter-docks, which 

 grow in great luxuriance along the tide water of our rivers, are 

 sufficiently high to shelter it. To such places it almost wholly 

 limits its excursions, seldom venturing far from the river. Its 

 food consists of flying insects, and their larvae, and a species of 

 green grasshoppers that inhabit the reeds. As to its notes it 

 would be mere burlesque to call them by the name of song. 

 Standing on the reedy borders of the Schuylkill or Delaware, 

 in the month of June, you hear a low crackling sound, some- 

 thing similar to that produced by air bubbles forcing their way 

 through mud or boggy ground when trod upon ; this is the son g 

 of the Marsh Wren. But as among the human race it is not 

 given to one man to excel in every thing, and yet each, per- 

 haps, has something peculiarly his own ; so among birds we find 

 a like distribution of talents and peculiarities. The little bird 

 now before us, if deficient and contemptible in singing, excels 

 in the art of design, and constructs a nest, which, in durability, 

 warmth and convenience, is scarcely inferior to one, and far 



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