AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 125 



THE MUSICAL WREN. ^ 

 By Leander S. Keyser. ^ 



He has such a loud^ clarion voice, with such a martial tone in it, that his 

 song almost sounds like a call to arms, though I suspect that it is only an in- 

 vitation for all the sleepy-heads to wake up, and all the pessimists to remem- 

 ber that life is worth living and that there is much good in the world. It 

 really is a good thing for us morally, and in every other way, too, to have 

 such a voice in nature as that of the Carolina wren. There are pensive songs 

 in the bird realm, and they often fit our mood, but they do not cheer us. The 

 Carolina is saying to all sad and brooding people, "Cheer up ! Cheer up ! The 

 world is full of joy; come out doors and be happy!" 



Are any of you interested in comparative ornithology.^ Well, I must tell 

 you about wrens and wrens. Not all wrens are alike, and it is interesting to 

 study the various species in diiFerent localities. In the neighborhood of 

 Atchison, in Northeastern Kansas, the little house-wren was the house wren 

 in truth. You could scarcely visit a country home without finding at least 

 one pair at your elbow, and many of the houses in town where the residences 

 were not too thick, had their pair of these wrens. Two pairs nested in my 

 yard in the city, for I set up boxes for them. In that part of the country 

 the Carolina wren is not a house wren, but prefers to dwell in the woods and 

 other lonely places, where he hides his nests in the holes of logs and stumps. 

 However, the house-wren takes the notion into his head to nest in wooded 

 places, too, as well as about the houses. 



In Colorado I did not find the Carolina at all, but the Western house-wren 

 was often seen, though for the most part in out-of-the way places. Northeast- 

 ern Arkansas and the Eastern border of Indian Territory are the home of 

 the sweet-voiced Bewick's wrens, which in that region, are pre-eminently 

 the wrens of the country and village homes, taking the place of the house- 

 wren technically so called. In the Gulf States that I have visited, both the 

 northern and southern jaarts, I found the Carolina wren a tenant of the 

 woods, seldom, if ever, making so bold as to set up his household goods in the 

 close neighborhood of human residences. 



I lived in Springfield, Ohio, a number of years. You will notice that it is 

 located southwest of the center of the state. There Bewick's wren was a 

 house bird, his sweet aria ringing around almost every rural home, and also 

 in the suburbs of the city. I never found more than one house-wren in that 

 vicinity, so far as I can recall, and he had taken up residence in an old or- 

 chard quite a distance from any house. The Carolinas of that locality avoid- 



