THE CAROLINA WREN 



By WITMER STONE 



Cde Jl^attonal j^^^ortatton ot SLutiUhon ^otittitu 



EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 50 



There are two birds which, dissimilar as they are in color and family 

 relationships, are always closely associated in my mind because of their simi- 

 larity in voice and habitat — the Cardinal and the Carolina Wren. Both are 

 characteristic of that southern land which stretches along our lower Atlantic 

 seaboard and comes pushing northward along the Susquehanna and Delaware 

 river valleys and up the Mississippi and its branches. 



In alder swamps and low, moist woodland we find them both throughout 

 the year; for they seem to be practically resident wherever they occur. 

 Time and again we are puzzled in early spring, when both are in full song, 

 to distinguish between their varied melodies. 



In the low, flat ground bordering the tide-water creeks of southwestern 

 New Jersey, they are particularly abundant, especially in midwinter, when 

 it always seemed to me that most of the Cardinals and Carolina Wrens gathered 

 in these swamps from all the country round about. Here they find food and 

 shelter suitable to their needs, and here the winter sun seems to shine more 

 warmly than back in the higher grounds of Pennsylvania. 



The Carolina Wren, however, is not entirely confined to these low grounds 

 in winter, but ranges well up the narrow valleys and deep ravines, and often 

 we find him along the rocky banks of some ravine where flows a narrow, 

 tumbling stream and where the hemlocks of the North mingle with the red- 

 bud and tulip-tree of the South. 



In such retreats in midwinter, when all is white with snow and the edges 

 of the streams are fringed with ice, we are startled by his clear, ringing whistle 

 — "tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle," and suddenly he darts out from behind 

 some fallen log, all action, like the tj^pical Wren he is, bobbing up and down 

 on his slender legs, tail cocked in the air, his sharp eye constantly fixed upon 

 the intruder, and he is out of sight in a moment, only to reappear again some- 

 where else in a perpetual game of hide and seek. 



To those who are familiar only with the House and Winter Wrens he seems 

 too large for a Wren; indeed, he seems quite as large as a Song Sparrow, 

 especially when his soft plumage is well fluffed up. His color is bright cinna- 

 mon-brown above, strongly tinted with the same below, but whitish on the 

 throat, and with a conspicuous white line running over the eye down to the 

 side of the neck. When we spread apart the long rump feathers, we find many 

 of them marked near the middle with round spots of white, which are entirely 

 concealed unless the plumage be disarranged. The Carolina Wren, Uke the 



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