266 Bird - Lore 



leave her nest. It was the 26th of March before she began to lay. The 8th of 

 May my mother took the water-pot down, and guess what was in it? Five lit- 

 tle birds had hatched. By the 13th of May they were completely hatched out 

 and were so ugly. A few days after they were better looking. They were chirp- 

 ing all the time. By Friday, May 21, 1 looked at them and they were all feath- 

 ered out and looked real pretty. This morning I was watching them. The 

 father bird and the mother were feeding the babies. The father gave them 

 his worm, then he took the mother's worm out of her mouth, too. 



Sunday I looked into the water-pot and saw that one of the little ones was 

 dead. Mother threw it out because she thought it might make the other ones 

 sick. The mother came back and found out one was gone. She chirped and 

 went on so funny. The little ones began to chirp, too. It seemed as if they were 

 telling her. She then went off and called the father bird. They went off, I 

 suppose, to hunt it. — ^Written by Dorothy Ricketts (age ten), Danville, 

 Kentucky. 



[This original observation, written by a fourth-grade pupil, calls to our attention the 

 difference in nesting-dates of the same species in different latitudes. The House Wren 

 nests in the vicinity of White Sulphur Springs, Va., April 27; D. C, May i; Cambridge, 

 Mass., May 25; southeastern Minnesota, May 19. The Carolina Wren, an equally 

 abundant species in the Middle States, nests at Weaver ville, N. C, April 20, although 

 it is known to nest 'as far north as New York (southern) in March.' Bewick's Wren, 

 or the Long-tailed House Wren, as it is sometimes called, nests in Buncombe County, 

 N. C, April 14. In 'Birds of Indiana,' Mr. Butler says: "I have seen them (Bewick's 

 Wrens) looking for a nest site March 25." Of the Carolina Wren he says: "I have 

 known them to begin singing February 3, and mate at once. March i, 1889, I found 

 them house-hunting." 



The Carolina Wren, although at times nesting about dwellings, is more generally 

 found in thickets, fallen timber, and piles of brush, somewhat remote from the habitations 

 of man. In southern Indiana, Bewick's Wren seems to have more or less usurped its place 

 about buildings, while the House Wren, which is quite as domestic a species, migrates 

 farther north and nests most abundantly probably beyond the limits of Bewick's Wren, 

 though commonly found in the same localities with the latter. A table of nesting-data 

 cited by Mr. Robert Ridgway for the House Wren gives a period of 47 days from the 

 time the nest was begun, April 15, till the young left the nest, June i. May 18 is the 

 date given by him when the young were completely hatched. If the dates given by the 

 writer of the above article are correct, the pair of Wrens described were longer than 

 usual raising their first brood. Wrens seem to delight in odd nesting-sites. Gourds, 

 tin cans, the drawbar of a freight car, a ball of twine in a binder, and even the sleeve of 

 a coat, as Alexander Wilson relates, are among the sites selected by these elfish birds. 

 Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright had a pair of House Wrens nesting in a straw cuff which 

 had been put out on the porch. 



Wrens are among our most beneficial birds, and since they are easily attracted to 

 artificial nesting-sites in localities where they are common, an effort should be made to 

 protect them and increase their numbers. They return quite regularly to a chosen site, 

 a fact that leads the writer to hope that the observer of the Wrens which built in a 

 watering-pot will tell us next spring the name of the species. — A. H. W.] 



