102 OUR NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



gloomy dwelling, that the ancients termed the A\Ten 

 Troglodytes, or dweller in caves. 



The wren is a most valuable little bird in rid- 

 ding plants of the numerous insects which in- 

 fest them, and it may often be seen, with its tail 

 raised, liunting every bud and leaf, and peering 

 with its bright eyes into every crevice of the 

 bough, chirring, and evidently enjoying its occupa- 

 tion. Cabbages, peas, beans, lettuces, flower- 

 stems, are all searched and cleared; and when 

 these resources fail, and the cold drives the wren 

 nearer to the homes of man, it hops about the 

 thatch of the barn or cottage, or by the side of 

 the drains, or among the straw of the farm-yard, 

 hunting up any dormant insects which lie hidden, 

 to open to their summer life when sunshine is 

 come. 



A gentleman who watched a pair of wrens with 

 a brood of little ones, found that they went from 

 the nest, and returned with insects in their mouths, 

 from forty to sixty times in an hour ; and in one 

 particular hour, the birds carried food to their 

 young seventy-one times. He considers that they 

 worked thus twelve times a-day, and that, taking 

 the medium of fifty times in an hour, they thus 



