( 470 ) 



HOUSE WREN. 



Troglodytes ^bon, Vieill. 



PLATE LXXXIII. Vol. I. p. 42?. 



This species is not found farther eastward along our Atlantic shores 

 than the province of Nova Scotia, where it is not very common, and I 

 suspect that the specimen of a Troglodytes procured by Mr Drummond 

 at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and described in the Fauna Bore- 

 ali- Americana, was the Wood Wren, T. Americana, it being found 

 from Maine to the Rocky Moimtains, as well as on the Columbia River, 

 from which specimens have been brought by Dr Townsend. The 

 House Wren, if I am not greatly mistaken, passes southward of the 

 United States, to spend the winter. The other spends that season 

 within our limits. 



Dr Bachman informs me that a bird resembling the Wood Wren, 

 as well as the House Wren, so closely that he could never distinguish 

 it from either species, spends its winters in great numbers in South 

 Carolina. Dr Beewer has favoured me with the following notice re- 

 specting the House Wren. " This bird never constructs with us a 

 distinct nest, but always conceals it in oUve-jars, boxes, and such things, 

 placed for its convenience around the houses, or in the hollow of trees. 

 Whenever the places in which they build are larger than necessary, 

 they usually endeavour to fill up the vacant parts with additional ma- 

 terials. I have by me a nest built two years since in the clothes-line 

 box of Professor Ware of Cambridge, which is in size considerably 

 more than a foot square ; and it must have cost its tiny architect many 

 days of hard labour to have arranged there such a mass of various 

 materials. The variety and size of some of those of which it is 

 composed is truly surprising. Among them are the exuvia of a §nake 

 several feet in length, large twigs, pieces of India-rubber suspenders 

 (which, by the way, are old acquaintances) oak-leaves, feathers, pieces 

 cf shavings, hair, hay, &c. It contained six eggs, which evidently^ 

 were suffered to become stale in consequence of the anxiety of the bird 

 to fill up the empty space." The eggs measure five-eighths of an inch 

 in length, and four and a half eighths in breadth. 



