INTRODUCTION. XXxXiil 
the air at the end of two suspending strings, rather than trust 
it to the wily enemies by which it is surrounded ; the entrance, 
for security, is also from below, and through a winding vestibule. 
Our little cheerful and almost domestic Wren ( 77oglodytes 
Julvus), which so often disputes with the Martin and the Blue- 
bird the possession of the box set up for their accommodation 
in the garden or near the house, in his native resort of a hollow 
tree, or the shed of some neglected out-house, begins his fabric 
by forming a barricade of crooked interlacing twigs, — a kind 
of chevaux-de-frise, — for the defence of his internal habitation, 
leaving merely a very small entrance at the upper edge. The 
industry of this little bird, and his affection for his mate, are 
somewhat remarkable, as he frequently completes his habita- 
tion without aid, and then searches out a female on whom to 
bestow it; but not being always successful, or the premises not 
satisfactory to his mistress, his labor remains sometimes with- 
out reward, and he continues to warble out his lay in solitude. 
The same gallant habit prevails also with our recluse Wren of 
the marshes. Wilson’s Marsh Wren (Zroglodytes palustris), 
instead of courting the advantages of a proximity to our dwel- 
lings, lives wholly among the reed-fens, suspending his mud- 
plastered and circularly covered nest usually to the stalks of 
the plant he so much affects. Another marsh species inhabits 
the low and swampy meadows of our vicinity (Z7eglodytes bre- 
virostris), and with ready address constructs its globular nest 
wholly of the intertwined sedge-grass of the tussock on which 
it is built; these two species never leave their subaquatic 
retreats but for the purpose of distant migration, and avoid 
and deprecate in angry twitterings every sort of society but 
their own. 
Among the most extraordinary habitations of birds, illustra- 
tive of their instinctive invention, may be mentioned that of 
the Bengal Grosbeak, whose pensile nest, suspended from the 
lofty boughs of the Indian fig-tree, is fabricated of grass, like 
cloth, in the form of a large bottle, with the entrance down- 
wards ; it consists also of two or three chambers, supposed to 
be occasionally illuminated by the fire-flies, which, however, 
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