WREN LIFE 



ly insectivorous, the wren as a gardener's assistant occupies a 

 high place. Especially is she valuable in the orchard. 



Between meals she devotes her time to looking over her 

 brood to see that no mites from the feather lining of her nest 

 are disturbing them — and twenty-five or thirty times each 

 day she cleans house thoroughly. 



After smoothing down the incipient feathers of her 

 babes, as she departs on another marketing expedition she 

 always casts a solicitous look behind ; and on her return she 

 always pauses on the threshold to survey her family as a 

 whole before attending to their wants. With all its cares, 

 the routine of nest life seems pleasing to this bustling little 

 creature. Possibly having always lived within the narrow 

 bounds of the trunk of a tree has prevented the confinement 

 from growing irksome to her. 



While his mate is so busy with household cares the little 

 father occupies himself mainly, when not busy with his music, 

 in annoying all other creatures about the place. The Eng- 

 lish sparrow has come in for a good share of his teasing and 

 scolding. Nothing seems to please the little meddler more 

 than to peck at the eggs, or to pull straws from the nest of 

 his neighbor, with whom he is decidedly unpopular. A 

 valiant defender of his household, when he recognizes ulterior 

 designs on the home in the tree, on the part of frolicking 

 squirrels, he loudly deprecates their society, expressing his 

 anger in such a way as, in the old days, would have made 

 them "grow smaller than a mouse," but which in these only 

 makes them scamper away. 



Often he flies to the swallows' adobe huts to give them 

 teasing pecks — and such a busybody as he is! There is not a 

 crack, crevice, or hole in the neighborhood, whether occupied 

 or not, that he has not looked into. He is not the only in- 



37 



