5 io PERCHING BIRDS. 



winter, but failed to keep them alive, although they are often exposed for sale 

 in the Paris bird-market. The wren generally rears several broods in a season, 

 and the old birds attend their offspring with the utmost assiduity. 



The European wren is not, it must be confessed, much of a musician, but some 

 of the South American representatives of the family are renowned for their 

 powers of song. Among them stands pre-eminent the so-called organ bird, or 

 warbling wren (Cyphorhinus cantans) of the forests of Amazonia. " When its 

 singular notes strike the ear for the first time," writes Bates, " the impression 

 cannot be resisted that they are produced by a human voice ; some musical boy 

 must be gathering fruits in the thicket, and singing a few notes to cheer himself. 

 The tones become more fluty and plaintive ; they are now those of a flageolet, and, 

 notwithstanding the utter impossibility of the thing, one is for a moment convinced 

 that someone is playing that instrument. ... It is the only songster that makes 

 an impression on the natives, who sometimes rest their paddles whilst travelling in 

 their small canoes along the shady bypaths, as if struck by the mysterious sound." 



The adult cock-bird of the common wren has the upper-parts reddish brown, 

 banded, except the head, with numerous blackish brown bars ; the eyebrows being 

 dull white, as are also the under-parts, although varied with rufous. In Iceland 

 and the Faroes this wren is replaced by the northern wren (T. borealis), which is 

 larger, darker, and has the under-parts more strongly barred. 



Some twenty species are included in this group, all of which 

 Cactus-Wrens. 



possess a stout compressed bill. The wings are broad, the tail 



graduated and fan-shaped, and the claws of the feet strong and much curved. 

 Chiefly inhabitants of Central and South America, the true cactus - wren 

 (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus) is found in California and Texas. Of the 

 habits of this wren, Dr. Coues gives the following description, observing that 

 in "the most arid and desolate regions of the South -West, where the cacti 

 flourish with wonderful luxuriance, covering the impoverished tracts of 

 volcanic debris with a kind of vegetation only less ugly and forbidding than 

 the very scoria, this wren makes its home and places its nests on every hand 

 in the thorny embrace of the repulsive vegetation. True to the instincts and 

 traditions of the wren family, it builds a bulky and conspicuous domicile; and 

 when many are breeding together the structures become as noticeable as the nests 

 which a colony of marsh- wrens build in the heart of the swaying reeds. But it is 

 not a globular mass of material, nor yet a cup ; it is like a purse or pouch and also 

 peculiar in its position, for such nests are usually pensile. In the present case, the 

 nest resembles a flattened flask more exactly, it is like the nursing-bottle with 

 which all mothers are familiar, and this is laid horizontally on its flat side in 

 the crotch of a cactus. It is constructed of grasses and small twigs woven or 

 matted together, and lined with feathers. Including the covered way or neck 

 of the bottle, leading to the nest proper, the structure is some ten or twelve 

 inches long and rather more than half as much in breadth. The bird appears 

 to be an early breeder. Dr. Cooper found it preparing to build nests about 

 San Diego so early as the 26th February. The eggs are white, but so thickly 

 flecked with small salmon-coloured spots, that a rich cast of this tint is given to 

 the whole surface." 



