70 DENIZENS OF THE DESERT 



rear her family in a nest embraced and fortified 

 by their needles. I doubt if there is a member 

 of the wren family that better provides for the 

 protection of her home. 



Those who are used to associating the word 

 "wren" with the tiny, sprightly, and vivacious 

 bird of the Eastern States, with its happy, 

 jocund, and joyous song, will find it hard to see 

 how the cactus wren can be called a wren at all, 

 for he is such a different fellow from the bird of 

 their acquaintance. On the whole he is rather a 

 coarse-looking bird with no prepossessing char- 

 acters as to either form or color. Comparatively, 

 he is rather a good-sized bird, having a length 

 of eight inches from bill to tail-tip. The general 

 color-tone is brownish gray with whitish under- 

 parts prominently speckled with round and 

 linear black spots, especially on the throat and 

 fore part of the breast. The bill, like that of 

 the rock wrens, is slightly bent. The song is an 

 odd one and hardly musical, consisting gen- 

 erally of only a coarse prolonged clatter or low 

 "chut-chut-chut." It is especially noticeable in 

 the spring during the nesting season. The males 

 are then unusually quarrelsome, hot-tempered, 



