Notes From Field and Study 



177 



feed a horse (if not very hungry — and 

 each day the Sparrows renewed it. My 

 standing on a chair, which brought my face 

 to the level of the box, and destroying the 

 nest daily did not discourage them in the 

 least. 



Finally, for some reason, I did not destroy 

 the nest for perhaps four or five days. 

 When I did so I found in the long roll of 

 debris that I pulled out of the hole two or 

 three broken eggs and one egg intact, which I 

 emptied and kept, in order that I ma\' know 

 an English Sparrow's egg the next time I see 

 one. After I had pulled everything, as I 

 supposed, out of the box, the female bird 

 darted out of the hole within six inches of 

 my face and made off. She had made no 

 attempt to escape before, and I had no 

 suspicion that there was a bird inside. 

 Within twenty minutes of that incident 

 these birds (I suppose the same pair) had 

 begun building another nest in the box. 



About this time, I think probablv the 

 next day. the first alarm-clock trill of the 

 season was uttered by the House Wren, and, 

 I quickly located a pair of them in a plum 

 tree only a few feet from the bird-house, as 

 though they had flown straight to it from 

 their winter resort in the South. It was 

 then the tenth of May and the plum trees 

 were in beautiful bloom, making a perfect 

 stage setting for the song of birds. Real- 

 izing that I could have no Bluebirds in my 

 box, I concluded that I would have Wrens. 

 Some bird-book or magazine that I had 

 said that a hole one and one-eighth inches 

 in diameter would admit Wrens and ex- 

 clude English Sparrows. Accordingly, I 

 made such a hole with much care in a thin 

 piece of board and, after once more pulling 

 out the Sparrows' nest, tacked it over the 

 larger hole in the box About five minutes 

 later I had the chagrin of seeing the cock 

 Sparrow pass through it with seeming ease, 

 and he looked like a large specimen of his 

 kind. 



I then made another hole just one inch in 

 diameter in another strip of board and 

 tacked that over the hole. This time I had 

 the reward of the successful inventor, for I 

 witnessed with joy that the violent efforts of 

 the Sparrows to get into the box were 



thwarted by the reduced aperture. All this 

 time the Wrens had remained near by and 

 had on several occasions that I witnessed 

 been inside the box, but the Sparrows 

 always drove them away. They returned, 

 however, with more persistence than the 

 Bluebirds had shown, and from the man- 

 ner in which they addressed the Sparrows, 

 between sweet songs, it was evident that 

 they intended to oust them if such a thing 

 were possible 



Only a few minutes after the smaller hole 

 had proved its ability to exclude the Spar- 

 rows, the Wrens had apparently compre- 

 hended the situation, and thev entered the 

 box and threw out the few remnants of the 

 nest that my hook had not extracted. 

 These they brought to the hole and dropped 

 to the ground, to the great annoyance of the 

 Sparrows, outside and unable to prevent it. 

 The Wrens came out frequently for a short 

 brush with the enemy and always got the 

 worst of it, but they easily got back in the 

 box and continued pitching out the wreck- 

 age of the nest. The hen Sparrow seemed 

 to give up the game after a few hours, but 

 the cock stajed there two or three days 

 looking very hostile and unhappy and try- 

 ing in vain to keep the Wrens from going 

 in and out of the hole I drove him away 

 many times, and the Wrens were, as a little 

 girl would say, "just as mean as they could 

 be" to him, but it was about three days 

 before the completeness of his eviction fully 

 dawned upon him Other Sparrows did not 

 take as much interest in this case as they 

 had shown in the earlier troubles with the 

 Bluebirds, perhaps because the season was 

 farther advanced and they were mostly 

 engaged in rearing families; or, possibly, 

 they knew by experience that it would 

 please the Wrens too much to quarrel with 

 them. 



When this malevolent bird exhibited such 

 a vindictive spirit by standing guard over 

 the box that he knew he could not use I 

 decided that the best thing to do to him 

 would be to shoot him. To that end I went 

 to a hardware store in the village, where I 

 had seen some 22 -caliber guns suitable for 

 both shot and ball cartridges, and began 

 buying one. In the course of the proceed- 



