164 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 



birds flew over our heads, and we heard chat- 

 ting and churring, and then silence. 



Without this hint from the wren we should 

 rarely have seen her leave the nest ; we should 

 naturally have watched for wings, and none 

 might come or go, while she was using her feet 

 instead. She returned in the same way ; flying 

 to the top, or part way up her sapling, she ran 

 down to her nest as glibly as she had run up. 

 The walnut-trunk was the ladder which led to 

 the outside world. This pretty little scene was 

 many tinies repeated, in the days that we spent 

 before the castle of our Carolinians ; the male 

 announcing himself afar with songs, and ap- 

 proaching gradually, while his mate listened to 

 the notes that had wooed her, and now again 

 coaxed her away from her sitting, for a short 

 outing with him. Sometimes, though rarely, 

 she came out without this inducement, but dur- 

 ing her sitting days she usually went only upon 

 his invitation. 



Before many days we had fully identified the 

 pair. The song had puzzled me at first, for 

 though extraordinary in volume for a bird of 

 his size, and possessing that indefinable wren 

 quality, that abandon and unexpectedness, as if 

 it were that instant inspired, it had yet few 

 notes, and I missed the exquisite tremolo that 

 makes the song of the winter-wren so bewitch- 



