WEEN. 139 



they were always regularly delivered to the grand architect 

 that was employed in constructing the building. Rennie says 

 that the Wren does not 'begin at the beginning' with its 

 nest, but first works at the outline of the whole, and afterwards 

 encloses the sides and top, and that if it be placed under 

 a bank, the top is begun first. The little bird often carries 

 a piece of moss nearly as large as itself, or a straw of even 

 greater length than itself, by which it is threatened to be 

 overborne in its flight, and if it should chance to drop it, 

 will pick it up again. 



The eggs are usually from seven to eight in number, but 

 generally not more than eight, though as many as a dozen, 

 or even fourteen, have been found, of a pale reddish white 

 colour, the former tint being transient; some are dusky white. 

 This ground colour is sprinkled all over with small spots of 

 dark crimson red, and these most numerous at the obtuse 

 end; some are quite white: the shell is very thin and polished. 

 The male feeds the female while sitting. Two broods are 

 produced in the season. The least disturbance will cause 

 the nest to be forsaken, and a new one built, and this again 

 and again, if so required, until the eggs are laid; even then, 

 if they or the young be once handled, this species will some- 

 times desert them. This may be the cause of tenantless 

 nests of the Wren being so frequently found, or some inter- 

 ruption of the ordinary course of laying; it is, however, said 

 that a forsaken nest will sometimes be again returned to. 

 Thus several nests of the same year are often found near 

 together, the work of one and the same pair of birds; and 

 other nests, in the making of which both birds assist, are 

 not very unfrequently put together in the autumn, and in 

 these the birds shelter themselves in the winter, possibly as 

 being of the newest, and therefore the best, construction, 

 and made too late in the year for a further brood; these 

 nests seldom, if ever, contain any feathers. The young are 

 said to return to lodge in the nest for some time after 

 being fledged. 



As an illustration of the paper in 'The Naturalist,' volume 

 i., page 5, by my brother, Dr. Beverley B. Morris, on the 

 power that birds have of compressing their bodily bulk. I 

 may mention an instance, given by Mr. Meyer in his work, 

 of a Wren he had, which flew without seeming difficulty 

 through the wires of a cage little more than the third of 

 an inch asunder. 



