6 



ORNITHOLOGIST 



[V0I.8-N0. 



1 



the bird for a time may be able to ehide 

 you completely. But at last, after mucli 

 patient work, you will have the game just 

 where you want it. You can name the 

 bird, you know its habits, all about its 

 mating and nesting, the size and color of 

 its eggs, where it builds and what it eats. 

 You have tried to catch the meaning of its 

 varioiis calls and songs with fair success. 

 Its form and color are indelibly fixed in 

 the mind and the bird has almost become 

 to you a veritable possession. 



The work undertaken has been accom- 

 plished ; yet, notwithstanding all this, a 

 new field of labor of large proportions 

 opens before you. The many evidences of 

 intelligence and reason will now occupy 

 your mind. The results of previous study 

 must become manifest. The real harvest 

 period has arrived, and it ought to be 

 fruitful. 



After having made the acquaintance of 

 our Winter birds, the Spring migrations 

 will be looked for with considerable 

 pleasure. 



The Crow will probably show the first 

 indications of discontent. Having made 

 some observations during the past season 

 (1882) on the mooted question as to the 

 migrations of Crows, I propose in the 

 next article to give facts and figures bear- 

 ing on this point.— 6^. Ji. C, JVorwich, Gt. 



Long-billed Marsh Wren.- 



" There is much in a name," and if we 

 judge in this instance by the length, we 

 might expect to see an enormous bird like 

 the fabulous " Koc," and were it not for 

 our dislike of change of names and trouble 

 in definitions, we would suggest an ex- 

 change. But what these little visitors lack 

 in size they make up in numbers. They 

 come late in April or in the early part of 

 May and spread over the salt marshes 

 from Florida to Massachusetts ; and on the 

 Jersey coast one could count hundreds of 

 nests in an afternoon. Their song is not 

 sweet, for they utter a harsh cry. compared 



by some to the noise of some large insect, 

 like the cricket or katy-did. They are 

 active and full of alarms, and the word 

 that enemies are at hand passes along the 

 line with great rapidity, so that it seldom 

 happens that they are surprised in their 

 nests, although they are impervious to the 

 light. Sentinels are ever on guard. Late 

 in April, or early in May, the flight of the 

 jDigmies commence, and they scatter along 

 the creeks and speedily take possession of 

 any bush or bunch of reeds or grass upon 

 the meadows, from twenty to fifty feet apart, 

 and commence to make a round or globular 

 nest, about the size and shape of a cocoa- 

 nut, a foot or two above the ground, weav- 

 ing in the long grasses in a very weaver- 

 like manner around the standing reeds, 

 and occasionally stopping up the interstices 

 with mud. 



The interior is lined with finer grass, 

 feathers, or other soft substances. The 

 opening is not \dsible but is concealed so 

 nicely with grass that even a mosquito 

 could not find its way in. The Marsh 

 Wren, like others of the Wren family, 

 from Sir Christopher down, have been fa- 

 mous as architects, and we have no nests 

 in our collection moi-e admired, or that show 

 more skill than those of the Marsh Wren, 

 woven in a group of cat-tails. I am in- 

 formed that an occasional nest is found in 

 the overhanging branches of trees, but 

 have never met with such. Their second 

 nests are built among the full-grown reeds, 

 and a nest with a few cat-tails woven in and 

 standing out from the top is quite a curi- 

 ous affair. The eggs are very small, pretty 

 uniform in size and shape, but varying 

 miich in color, from a blueish white ground 

 to a dark chocolate color, and more or less 

 blotched. The eggs in one nest are gen- 

 erally nearly alike in color, although we oc- 

 casionally find some very dissimilar in the 

 same nest. The number varies from four 

 to six. In hundreds of nests I have never 

 found the latter number exceeded, averag- 

 ing five. 



