Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 



Long-billed Marsh Wren 



(Cistothonis palustris) Wren family 



Length — 4,5 to 5.2 inches. Actually a little smaller than the Eng- 

 lish sparrow. Apparently half the size. 



3Iale and Female — Brown above, with white line over the eye, 

 and the back irregularly and faintly streaked with white. 

 Wings and tail barred with darker cinnamon-brown. Un- 

 derneath white. Sides dusky. Tail long and often carried 

 erect. Bill extra long and slender. 



Range — United States and southern British America. 



Migrations — May. September. Summer resident. 



Sometimes when you are gathering cat-tails in the river 

 marshes an alert, nervous little brown bird rises startled from the 

 rushes and tries to elude you as with short, jerky flight it goes 

 deeper and deeper into the marsh, where even the rubber boot 

 may not follow. It closely resembles two other birds found in 

 such a place, the swamp sparrow and the short-billed marsh 

 wren; but you may know by its long, slender bill that it is not 

 the latter, and by the absence of a bright bay crown that it is 

 not the shyest of the sparrows. 



These marsh wrens appear to be especially partial to running 

 water; their homes are not very far from brooks and rivers, 

 preferably those that are affected in their rise and flow by the 

 tides. They build in colonies, and might be called inveterate 

 singers, for no single bird is often permitted to finish his bubbling 

 song without half the colony joining in a chorus. 



Still another characteristic of this particularly interesting bird 

 is its unique architectural effects produced with coarse grasses 

 woven into globular form and suspended in the reeds. Some- 

 times adapting its nest to the building material at hand, it weaves 

 it of grasses and twigs, and suspends it from the limb of a bush 

 or tree overhanging the water, where it swings like an oriole's. 

 The entrance to the nest is invariably on the side. 



More devoted homebodies than these little wrens are not 

 among the feathered tribe. Once let the hand of man desecrate 

 their nest, even before the tiny speckled eggs are deposited in it, 

 and off go the birds to a more inaccessible place, where they can 

 enjoy their home unmolested. Thus three or four nests may be 

 made in a summer. 



X19 



