52 BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD. 



it is not unusual to see two or three different species 

 contending for one box. 



THE HOUSE-WREN. 



The bird whose notes serve more than any other spe- 

 cies to enliven our summer noondays is the common 

 House-Wren. It is said to breed chiefly in the Middle 

 States, but is very common in our New England vil- 

 lages, and as it extends its summer migration to Labrador, 

 it probably breeds in all places north of the Middle States. 

 It is a migratory bird, leaving us early in autumn, and 

 not reappearing until May. It builds in a hollow tree 

 like the Bluebird. A box of any kind, properly made, 

 will answer its purposes. But nothing is better than 

 a grape-jar, prepared by drilling a hole in its side, just 

 large enough for the Wren, and setting it up on a 

 perpendicular branch sawed off and inserted into the 

 mouth of the jar. The bird fills it with sticks before it 

 makes a nest, and the mouth of the jar serves for drain- 

 age. 



The Wren is one of the most restless of the feathered 

 tribe. He is continually in motion, and even when sing- 

 ing is constantly flitting about and changing his position. 

 We see him in a dozen places as it were at the same 

 moment; now warbling in ecstasy from the roof of 

 a shed, then, with his wings spread and his feathers 

 ruffled, scolding furiously at a Bluebird or a Swallow 

 that has alighted on his box, or driving a Eobin from a 

 neighboring cherry-tree. Instantly we observe him run- 

 ning along a stone-wall and diving down and in and out, 

 from one side to the other, through its openings, with 

 all the nimbleness of a squirrel. He is on the ridge of 

 the barn roof, he is peeping into the dove-cote, he is in 

 the garden under the currant-bushes, or chasing a spider 

 under a cabbage-leaf. Again he is on the roof of a shed, 



