MARSH-WRENS. 97 



trances the sitting bird would receive on its back, and 

 either retain or cause to trickle beyond the eggs ; and 

 in those nests where the mate sat in the entrance, of 

 course no rain could enter. I do not know that this 

 has become a common habit, taking the place of a nest 

 built as Wilson describes, but such is probably the case. 

 A general survey of the nests then found and all such 

 seen since then bear me out in saying that, as a rule, the 

 nests are not built so as to be exposed to wind or rain. 

 They are placed sufficiently low in the reeds to be 

 sheltered quite effectually by the overtopping growths, 

 which, of course, bend over them and become sheltering 

 roofs during high winds and driving rain-storms. 



The mud cementing the outer materials of which the 

 nest is composed is the second feature, mentioned by 

 Wilson and subsequent writers, which I have usually 

 found wanting. I have never, indeed, found much 

 mud in the walls of any nest, and in others so little 

 that it might readily be only the still adherent particles 

 that were on the leaves when they were gathered for the 

 structure. In by far the great majority of the nests 

 there was not a particle of foreign material clinging to 

 the rushes and grass that formed them. 



A curious feature of the lives of these wrens is, that 

 they seem to be always nest-building. After the sec- 

 ond brood is on the Mung I have found new nests in 

 course of construction ; nests which were finished in 

 August, and probably never occupied, even as roosting- 

 places. Furthermore, I have been inclined, at times, to 

 believe that polygamy was practised by these wrens. I 

 have watched a colony of the birds, by the hour, and I 



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