142 



THE OOLOGlST. 



riving (whenever that may be) it makes 

 its home in the grass with which the 

 prairie is covered, and for some reason 

 does not appear to sing much before 

 the hot months, and certainly not 

 before nest building begins. This 

 commences early in June and from 

 that time until late in August and early 

 September one may find the birds 

 busily engaged in the duties of nidi- 

 fication. Only one nest has come under 

 my notice in June. This was found on 

 the 9th, and contained two whole eggs 

 and several broken ones a herd of 

 cattle having run over it. This was 

 certainly an exceptionally early date as 

 I have not been able to find any sign of 

 one that early since. 



From July 15th to August 30th is the 

 period of active nesting. At any time 

 during those six weeks one may observe 

 their habits to his hearts content (that 

 is if he is easily contented). One of 

 their most characteristic habits is 

 mounting a weed-stalk and after sing- 

 ing for a few seconds suddenly disap- 

 pearing in the grass at the foot of it. 

 From there it may again mount the 

 stalk and sing its pleasant song or it 

 may emerge from the grass several feet 

 from where it entered and fly to an- 

 other weed. Its notes are uttered on 

 the wing, also. Always when setting, 

 it utters several warning notes before 

 commencing its real song. Though it 

 is some time yet before I can hope to 

 see the dear little fellow again, it 

 seems almost as though I can see him 

 mount a "gunweed," cock his little tail, 

 utter the warning notes and sing his 

 song, which conveys the idea as plain- 

 ly as words, "Find my nest if you can." 

 "All right my fine fellow we will try." 

 So we will watch him. He flies a short 

 distance alights and soon disappears in 

 the grass. Not seeing him for some 

 time we think he has. gone to his nest. 

 S.o watching carefully we approach the 

 place where he disappeared. "Ah! 

 there he goes, now let us look for the 



nest." But though we search careful- 

 ly we cannot find it and we see he has 

 fooled us, so we will try another plan. 

 Going whei"e the grass grows thickest, 

 in some spot where there is a depres- 

 sion in the ground which has held 

 water longer than the rest, or near the 

 waters edge of some pond, we begin 

 the search. We must part the grass in 

 all directions for the nest will be care- 

 fully concealed and placed below the 

 tops. After considerabl3 time (having 

 started in the right place) we find a 

 nest. The first we see is that the tops 

 of a bunch of grass blades all curl 

 towards the center. Looking closer 

 we see that they hide the nest, which is 

 the shape of a cocoanut, and composed 

 of dry grass. We nervously feel for the 

 iittle round hole in the side, just like 

 the one in a mouse nest, and eagerly 

 insert a finger. Hurrah! Eggs! Well 

 we are very fortunate. There are six 

 little pearly-white beauties, and fresh. 

 We feel much encouraged now and 

 again begin to hunt. Before long we 

 find another nest. But ah! there are no 

 eggs. The nest is not lined nicely with 

 feathers as the first one was but is com- 

 posed entirely of grass, and very loose- 

 ly made. Our ardor is somewhat 

 dampened but we continue the search. 

 We find several nests but no more 

 with eggs, so we see that we were very 

 fortunate the first time. We have 

 hunted all the afternoon and now we 

 go home and prepare the eggs we have 

 found. While we were searching Mr. 

 Wren did not appaar to act any dif- 

 ferent than when we were out of sight 

 of him. 

 I have rarely caught the bird in the act 

 of nest building. Only once, I think, 

 then the nest turned out to be one of 

 those which are not used for eggs. 

 What is the birds object in building the 

 extra nests can never be definately 

 known. It is a characteristic of the 

 Wren family. The Long-billed Marsh 

 Wren builds fully as many extra nests 



