BETSY BOUNCE, THE ROCK WREN 91 



will have hidden it so deeply that it will be 

 quite out of sight, and it may take considerable 

 work on your part even to get a peep at it. 

 But the nest or its situation is the least inter- 

 esting feature. It is the unique paved entrance 

 that most engages the attention. During the 

 building season the birds become connoisseurs 

 of flat and pretty stones, and these they scatter 

 together with a few sticks about the dooryard 

 of the nest. And these stones are not small ones 

 either. Stones a quarter of an inch thick and 

 an inch and a half long are the average-sized 

 ones in the nests I have seen, but even larger 

 ones are not infrequent. The quantity may be 

 several handfuls. Sometimes in the vicinity 

 of the coastal villages the rock wrens gather 

 shells, pieces of china, and even bits of shining 

 black coal to use in decorating the nest's en- 

 trance. Why such elaborate pains should be 

 taken to decorate and "fix up" the tiny bird 

 home is difficult to explain on other grounds 

 than the bird's aesthetic sense — a taste pos- 

 sessed by many birds and animals. Mr. French 

 Oilman tells me that one spring, in the vicinity 

 of the Sacaton Indian Reservation in Arizona, 



