The nests are made of coarse marsh-grass,— of 

 the floatage often,— and are so long in the pro- 

 cess of construction that, when completed, they 

 are all speared through with the grass-blades, as 

 with so many green bayonets. They are about 

 the size of a large calabash, nearly round, thick- 

 walled and heavy, with a small entrance, just 

 under the roof, leading upward like a short 

 stair to a deep, pocket-like cavity, at whose 

 bottom lie the eggs, barely out of finger reach. 



I could hear the smothered racket of the 

 singing wrens all about me in the dense growth, 

 scoldings to my right, defiance to my left, dis- 

 cussions of wives, grumblings of husbands, and 

 singing of lovers everywhere, until the whole 

 marsh seemed a- sputter and a-bubble with a 

 gurgling tide of song like a river running in. 

 l^ow and then, a wave, rising higher than its 

 fellows, splashed up above the reeds and broke 

 into song-spray, as an ecstasy lifted the wee 

 brown performer out of the green. 



But these short dashes of the wrens into 

 upper air, I have come to believe, are not en- 

 tirely the flights of enraptured souls. Some- 

 thing more than Mr. Chapman's "mine of 

 [200] 



