BEWICK’S WREN. 149 
The song is not so full of voice or metal, nor so echoing as that of the latter bird, and 
it never intermingles other birds’ notes in its brief chant. When I listened to the song the 
first time, it strangely reminded me of that of the Song Sparrow. The same impression 
was experienced by Mr. Robert Ridgway, who says, that it resembles “nearly, both in 
modulation and power, that of the Song Sparrow, though far superior to it.’ Bewick’s 
Wren is not so ceaseless a songster as the Mocking Wren, singing only during the breed- 
ing season with more or less energy. Early in the morning, and again toward evening 
it sings most frequently and loudest. 
Like the subject of the preceding sketch, this Wren is also an accomplished hole- 
breeder, though not always selecting cavities as nesting-sites. Above all it loves the 
presence of man, and therefore frequents the log-cabin of the poor settler as much as the 
suburban villa of the rich merchant. It has become a perfect house bird —more so even 
than the northern House Wren. Wherever found it is a welcome visitor, especially in the 
southern ornamental gardens which it helps to beautify and to enliven by its exhilarating 
song and its confiding ways. In dense bushes of pittosporum, on the top of an arbor 
embowered with Japan honeysuckles and Banksia roses, in shade trees and on posts 
are often found convenient nesting boxes, which are almost always inhabited by these 
Wrens. In localities where farmers do not care for their best friends, the birds, they are 
very variable in selecting places in which to build their nests. If natural cavities and 
nesting boxes are not to be found, they build on beams in log-houses and stables, in 
smoke-houses and wood-sheds. I have found nests also in stove-pipes, which lay on 
the ground, in the pockets of an over-coat hanging on the veranda, in tool boxes, on 
flat boards over doors, and on cup-boards and book-cases, even in inhabited rooms. 
If the nest is constructed in boxes or tree-holes, it consists of bark-strips, fine 
grasses, Spanish moss, feathers, bristles, and hair, all loosely put together; but, if it is 
built on a flat surface, it is not only a bulky structure but is exteriorly composed of 
rough materials, such as plant-stems, twigs, coarse grasses, leaves, small pieces of bark, 
etc., fastened together with mosses and spiders’ webs. In such cases it is always 
arched over with the entrance hole on one side, being lined with feathers, pieces of fur, 
cotton, bristles, and the soft stems of a species of Guaphalium. In unsettled districts, 
the birds usually nest in holes of stumps or in old Woodpeckers’ holes. 
The eggs, five to seven in number, show a rosy-white ground-color and are rather 
densely but regularly spotted with reddish-brown and dull slate-colored markings. They 
measure about .67%.50 of an inch. 
Early in spring of 1883 a pair of these birds nested in the straw-roof of an old 
stable near my house in Lawrence County, Missouri. The seven eggs were hatched in 
thirteen days; and in about thirteen days more, the young left the nest. When I tried 
to examine the nest, the little ones hopped out in all directions, hiding themselves with 
mouse-like rapidity in the surrounding weeds. The parent birds always uttered harsh 
and angry notes when I came too near their domicile. If a cat, or a Blue Jay, or any 
unwelcome visitor approached the nest, they uttered their harsh notes and usually 
swooped in rapid flights around the intruder. In the South three broods are often 
raised yearly; in Missouri, I observed that they raised two broods annually. The food 
is exclusively insectivorous, the birds devouring innumerable destructive insects, thus 
