Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 
Undergrowths near water, brush heaps, rocky bits of wood- 
land, are favorite resorts. The Carolina wren decidedly objects 
to being stared at, and likes to dart out of sight in the midst of 
the underbrush in a twinkling while the opera-glasses are being 
focussed. 
To let off some of his superfluous vivacity, Nature has pro- 
vided him with two safety-valves: one is his voice, another is 
his tail. With the latter he gesticulates in a manner so expres- 
sive that it seems to be a certain index to what is passing in his 
busy little brain—drooping it, after the habit of the catbird, when 
he becomes limp with the emotion of his love-song, or holding 
it erect as, alert and inquisitive, he peers at the impudent intruder 
in the thicket below his perch. 
But it is his joyous, melodious, bubbling song that is his 
chief fascination. He has so great a variety of strains that many 
people have thought that he learned them from other birds, and 
so have called him what many ornithologists declare that he is 
not—a mocking wren. And he is one of the few birds that sing 
at night—not in his sleep or only by moonlight, but even in the 
total darkness, just before dawn, he gives us the same wide- 
awake song that entrances us by day. 
Winter Wren 
(Troglodytes biemalis) Wren family 
Length—4 to 4.5 inches. About one-third smaller than the Eng- 
lish sparrow. Apparently only half the size. 
Male and Female—Cinnamon-brown above, with numerous short, 
dusky bars. Head and neck without markings. Under- 
neath rusty, dimly and finely barred with dark brown. Tail 
short. 
Range—United States, east and west, and from North Carolina to 
the Fur Countries. 
Migrations—October, April. Summer resident. Commonly a 
winter resident in the South and Middle States only. 
It all too rarely happens that we see this tiny mouse-like 
wren in summer, unless we come upon him suddenly and over- 
take him unawares as he creeps shyly over the mossy logs or 
runs literally “like a flash” under the fern and through the tan- 
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