TROGLODYTES DOMESTICUS .* HOUSE WREN. 95 



HOUSE WREN. 

 TROGLODYTES DOMESTICUS (Bartr.) Coues. 



Chars. Above, brown, darker or grayer on the head, brighter on 

 the rump and upper tail-coverts. Below, dull whitish, clearest on 

 the abdomen, obscurely variegated with irregular dark markings 

 which become bars on the flanks and crissum. Wings, tail, 

 rump, and often the back, closely waved with dusky lines. An 

 obscure whitish supraciliary line and edge of eyelids. Bill black- 

 ish above, pale below ; feet brownish. Length, 4.75-5.25 ; extent, 

 6.75 ; wing, 2.00-2.10 ; tail, 1.90 ; bill, 0.50 ; tarsus, 0.60. 



Note. The Wood Wren (T. americanus Aud.) is not specifically, 

 distinct from the House Wren. 



% 



This sprightly and vivacious tenant of the shrubbery 

 about the homestead, whose richly-trilled song is 

 familiar to every ear, is in New England a summer 

 resident, arriving from the south about the end of 

 April, and remaining through October. It becomes- 

 generally distributed in two or three weeks after its 

 first appearance in the Carolinian Fauna, and begins 

 to withdraw from its more northerly breeding grounds 

 late in September, though its final retreat from our 

 borders is only accomplished in the course of the fol- 

 lowing month. The House Wren is practically, or 

 chiefly, restricted in its northward dispersion by the 

 Alleghanian Fauna, and is hence rarely if ever found 

 in northern New England. Apart from its general 

 geographical distribution, it affects particular localities,, 

 where it may be very abundant, without obvious^ 

 reason, while it is no less unaccountably rare in other 

 places apparently as eligible ; the local distribution is 

 thus fortuitous, and may moreover differ with succes- 

 sive years. 



