IV 



FUSS AND FEATHERS 



PROBABLY we have no other familiar bird 

 keyed up to the same degree of intensity as 

 the house wren. He seems to be the one bird whose 

 cup of Ufe is always overflowing. The wren is habit- 

 ually in an ecstasy either of delight or of rage. He 

 probably gets on the nerves of more persons than 

 any other of our birds. He is so shrilly and over- 

 flowingly joyous, or else so sharply and harshly 

 angry and pugnacious — a lyrical burst one minute, 

 and a volley of chiding, staccato notes the next. 

 More restless than the wind, he is a tiny dynamo of 

 bird energy. From his appearance in May till his 

 last brood is out in midsummer, he repeats his shrill, 

 hurried little strain about ten times a minute for 

 about ten hours a day, and cackles and chatters 

 between-times. He expends enough energy in giving 

 expression to his happiness, or vent to his anger, in 

 the course of each day to carry him halfway to the 

 Gulf. He sputters, he chatters, he carols; he excites 

 the wrath of bluebirds, phoebes, orioles, robins; he 

 darts into holes; he bobs up in unexpected places; 

 he nests in old hats, in dinner-pails, in pumps, in 

 old shoes. Give him a twig and a feather and a hole 

 in almost anything, and his cup is full. How ab- 



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