476 WRENS 



b. Back with white streaks. 



b 1 . White streaks confined to the center of the back; a white line over 

 the eye . . . . 725. LONG-BILLED MARSH WREN and races. 

 b 2 . Crown, back, and wing-coverts streaked with white. 



724. SHORT-BILLED MARSH WREN. 



718. Thryothorus ludovicianus ludovicianus (Lath.}. CAROLINA 

 WREN. (Fig. 72c.) Ads. Above bright rufous or rufous-brown without 

 bars or streaks ; feathers of rump with concealed downy white spots ; a long, 

 conspicuous whitish or buffy line over eye; wings and tail rufous-brown, 

 finely barred with black; underparts ochraceous-buff or cream-buff, whiter 

 on the throat; flanks sometimes with a few blackish bars. Worn breeding 

 plumage is dingier above and whiter below. The largest of our Wrens. 

 L., 5-50; W., 2-30; T., 2'00; B., '60. 



Range. E. U. S. Breeds in Carolinian and Austroriparian faunas from 

 se. Nebr., s. Iowa, Ohio, s. Pa., and lower Hudson and Conn, valleys s. to 

 cen. Tex., Gulf States, and n. Fla.; casual n. to Wise., Mich., Ont., Mass., 

 N. H., and Maine. 



Washington, common P. R. Cambridge, rare or casual. N. Ohio, 

 tolerably common P. R. 



Nest, bulky, of grasses, feathers, leaves, etc., lined with finer grasses, 

 long hairs, etc., in holes in trees or stumps, nooks and crevices about build- 

 ings, etc. Eggs, 4-6, white or creamy white, with numerous cinnamon-, 

 rufous-brown, and lavender markings, sometimes wreathed about the 

 larger end, *75 x *58. Date, Weaverville, N. C., Apl. 20. 



The cozy nooks and corners about the home of man which prove 

 so attractive to the House Wren are less commonly chosen by this bird. 

 His wild nature more often demands the freedom of the forests, and he 

 shows no disposition to adapt himself to new conditions. Undergrowths 

 near water, fallen tree tops, brush heaps, and rocky places in the woods 

 where he can dodge in and out and in a twinkling appear or disappear 

 like a feathered Jack-in-the-box, are the resorts he chooses. 



The nervous activity so characteristic of all Wrens reaches in him 

 its highest development. Whatever he may be when alone, he is never 

 at rest so long as he imagines himself observed. Now he is on this 

 side of us, now on that ; a moment later, on a stump before us, bobbing 

 up and down and gesticulating wildly with his expressive tail ; but as a 

 rule he is seldom in sight more than a second at a time. Of course, so 

 excitable a nature must find other than physical outlet for its irrepressi- 

 ble energy, and the bird accompanies his movements by more or less 

 appropriate notes: scolding cacks, clinking, metallic rattles, musical 

 trills, tree-toadlike krrrings in fact, he possesses an almost endless 

 vocabulary. He is sometimes called Mocking Wren, but the hundreds 

 of birds I have heard were all too original to borrow from others. In 

 addition to his peculiar calls he possesses a variety of loud, ringing whis- 

 tles, somewhat similar in tone to those of the Tufted Titmouse or Car- 

 dinal, and fully as loud as, if not louder than, the notes of the latter. 

 The more common ones resemble the syllables whee-udel, whee-udel, 

 whee-udel, and tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle. 



1909. TOWNSEND, C. W., Auk, XXVI, 263-269 (in N. E.). 



718a. T. 1. miamensis Ridgw. FLORIDA WREN. Similar to the preceding, 

 but larger; above darker; below more deeply colored. W. f 2'46;T.,2*19;B., "70. 



