THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 139 



family to follow to a suitable perching place for the night. When 

 this is at last accomplished, one may, with great caution, get a 

 peep at them, all in a row, with an old bird at each end. 

 Low, dense, broad-leaved shrubs. Eucalyptus trees, if low, 

 or dense masses of broad-leaved sword-grass are the usual 

 camps chosen. Young wrens seem to lose their early notes about 

 the time they have fully acquired the song. July and August are 

 the earliest months in which I have detected the young wrens 

 practising the song, though to some it may come earlier than 

 others. Besides the song there are the notes of alarm, harsh and 

 quick ; the low note of satisfaction uttered at every peck at an 

 insect, especially when the family has alighted on a good patch ; 

 and sometimes, not often, a low melancholy note uttered at each 

 series of hops. In spring the males sometimes make a continued 

 utterance of what is like half the usual song. One use for the 

 song is to keep the family together, and acquaint each other of 

 their whereabouts. One may often see a wren which has been 

 left behind mount the topmost twig of a bush and sing until 

 answered from a distance, when it will fly off in that direction and 

 rejoin the others. Gould's Wrens are not gregarious ; though two 

 or three families may hunt over each other's ground, they never 

 join in a community like the Acanthizas and Chats, but each 

 family keeps, if it can, to its own particular ground and has its 

 own particular camp. In one of my letters to you last year I 

 told you about three males attending a nest I had transferred to a 

 cage, and about which I was making notes. The spring before 

 (1897) I had noticed a similar case, so when in August, 1898, I 

 found a pair of males attending one female in a very isolated 

 patch of cover, which could be easily watched, I determined 

 to watch them right through. From the first it was evident that 

 one male had possession of the female, and that the other male 

 was tolerated either because it could not or would not be 

 driven away. When the female was on the nest, the two 

 males were apparently friendly enough — fed, hunted, and camped 

 together. One day when I was watching a Pied Grallina build- 

 ing its nest, a female wren — a stranger — came into the tree, when 

 both males at once attacked it. For five minutes their bills were 

 clipping like shears, when the poor little female took flight for the 

 nearest cover, pursued by both of its tormentors. When the 

 young were hatched out, on 28th October, both males fed and 

 attended to them, and right on to the present time (20th June) 

 the partnership continues. This being the third instance of such 

 conduct in three successive seasons leads one to assume that it is 

 no uncommon occurrence. That wrens can think seems to me 

 proved by the following incident : — In June, 1897, I had 

 completed the building of a large heap of logs preparatory 

 to burning, and was intently watching the actions of a White- 



