



THE WREN AND THE TROGLODYTE 



I found one day a marvelously constructed 

 nest in the boughs of a larch tree Imagine a 

 large ball, delicately woven of moss and gos- 

 samer threads, wadded inside with the war- 

 mest and softest down, gathered from the 

 ; catkins of poplars, the ripe tufts of thistles 

 and the cottony seed of the willow herb. This 

 soft nest, into which one could only penetrate 

 on one side by a narrow opening, was the work of the 

 golden-crested wren, that liliputian bird, the smallest of 

 our European birds. 



The wren is yet smaller and more delicate than its 

 cousin the troglodyte, with which it is often confounded, 

 although the two birds differ in manners, phimage and 



