128 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



THE CAROLINA WREN, 

 By Emma E. Laughun. 



The songster of these frosty winter mornings and days is the saucy little 

 Carolina Wren. He begins the day with a cheery note, and later bursts in- 

 to an ecstacy of song. No bird-song can equal his in pure, bubbling, rip- 

 pling melody. At no season of the year is he quiet. His song may be heard 

 during any month of the j'ear, and his vivacity is not affected by weather. 

 I have heard liim singing during a rain shower in the summer, and in zero 

 weather in the winter. Occasionally, in extremely cold weather in this lati- 

 tude (-to degrees), a Carolina Wren will be found frozen to death, but as a 

 rule he is hardy enough to withstand the cold. 



One spring, in May, I watched a pair of Carolina wrens for several weeks. 

 They had made a nest inside a wash-house, just over the door. Instead of 

 going to the nest through the door, which was nearly always open, they 

 went in through a broken pane in the window, or through a small hole just 

 under the roof. Occassionally the little brown mother bird went in through 

 the door, but her mate never entered that way. 



When I first began to watch them, the female was sitting and so was rare- 

 ly seen. Her mate would begin to sing very early in the morning, and would 

 sing all day, getting quite hilarious by four o'clock in the afternoon. When 

 ready to sing he would drojj his tail, stand ujd very straight and open his 

 mouth wide. With one look at the sky his inspiration would come, and then 

 the air would be filled with clear, entrancing music. His favorite perch was 

 on the comb of the roof near his roof entrance, but he was too restless to 

 stay there long at a time. An ash tree nearby and a young maple were also 

 popular perches. A porch which was nearly always occupied by people was 

 not ten feet from the ash tree. Occasionally he would drop down to a 

 grindstone, not far away, or to the pump, and play hide-and-seek with us, 

 only there was no seeking on our part, for he would be sure to peep around 

 every minute to see what we were doing. 



One day tiny lives began to stir in the nest and then there were busy 

 times. The mother wren darted out and in quietly, like a little brown mouse. 

 Not so did Mr. Wren. He became livelier than ever. He was a good 

 worker but stopped often to express his happiness in song. Sometimes he 

 would sing "wheetle-chew, wheetle-chew/' with the falling inflection until 

 he would become so excited the song would be changed to " chew-wheetle, 

 chew-Tvheetle," repeated rapidly several times with the rising inflection. 

 Then he would suddenly remember his fatherly cares and dart away, to re- 



