THE BUILDING OF THE NEST. 



141 



loud chatter near my chamber windows. There 

 was no mistaking the creature that uttered it, 

 and I knew, although it had rained violently all 

 the night, and was still storming, that the house- 

 wren had come back to his old castle on the 

 post. I peeped through the shutter as soon as 

 there was sufficient light, and there stood the 

 little bird, braving a keen east wind and singing 

 with all his might. Now, the day before there 

 were no wrens near ; not one was skulking 

 along the hillside looking for nesting sites. Had 

 there by chance been even a straggler ahead of 

 time, as is not uncommon with many migratory 

 birds, it would have been heard, if not seen, for 

 wrens are never silent for a day, if indeed for any 

 five minutes of it, unless asleep. Therefore I am 

 confident that the plucky bird that I saw in the 

 dawn of April 26th had been guided by the 

 prominent landmarks, such as the river, mead- 

 ows, and the wooded bluff, and had come di- 

 rectly to his home of the past summer, hastening, 

 when once he started, to the inconspicuous box 

 that is perched upon a pole close to my house, 

 and hidden by two great locust-trees and a tow- 

 ering wild-cherry. No stranger wren while yet 

 it was dark could have found the spot and 

 proved himself so promptly at home, for early 

 that same day, while yet alone, the bird com- 

 menced house- cleaning, preparatory to the one 



