158 LONG-BILLED MARSH WREN. 
The range of the Long-billed Marsh Wren appears to extend nearly over the entire 
country, from the Gulf of Mexico to southern British America, and from the Atlantic 
to the Rocky Mountains. Its habitation is exclusively in swamps and marshes, destitute 
of trees and shrubs but filled with reeds and sedges; for this reason the bird is of very 
local distribution, being met with in the most favorable places only. Where its require- 
ments are satisfied, it is extremely abundant. In northern Illinois and southern Wis- 
consin, I never noticed its arrival before May 10, usually some days later. It always 
migrates singly or in pairs. In Texas, I have seen this Wren but seldom during 
migration time. In Dr. Elliott Coues’ ‘Birds of the North-West,’ I find the following 
interesting passage: 
“On entering a patch of rushes where the Wrens are breeding, we almost instantly 
hear the harsh screeping notes with which those nearest scold us, in vehement and 
angry resentment at the intrusion. From further away in the maze of reeds we hear a 
merry little song from those still undisturbed, and presently we see numbers flitting on 
feeble wing from one clump of sedge to another, or poised in any imaginable attitude 
on the swaying stems. Their postures are sometimes very comical; a favorite attitude 
is with the tail thrown up till it almost covers the back, and the head lowered. In 
this position they have a peculiar swaying motion, back and forward, as if they were 
on a pivot, and in this position they sing most frequently. Others may be seen scram- 
bling like little mice up and down the reed-stems or all over their globular nests. They 
appear among themselves to be excitable to the verge of irascibility, and not seldom 
quite beyond such moderate limit; but on the whole they form a harmonious little 
colony which minds its own business, and doubtless makes pleasant company for the 
Blackbirds and other larger species which built among them.” 
The nidification of the Marsh Wren is a very interesting part of its life-history. 
In the sloughs of. northern Ilinois, and in the extensive, more or less inaccessible 
marshes of southern Wisconsin, the birds begin nest-building in the last days of May. 
I have found invariably that the outer walls of the structure are built of long, coarse 
grasses, which are thoroughly wet and consequently very pliable, and which are always 
collected from the water. The bulky domicile is fastened in the top of the swaying 
reeds, the upright stems of which run through the walls. The form of the nest is 
globular, about the size and shape of a large cocoanut, with a little hole on the side. 
This hollow ball is lined with finer grasses. Although constructed of coarse materials, 
it is, nevertheless, a very pretty and compact home. The large number of nests I 
often found in favorable localities, in some small tract of marshland was really 
astonishing. In one case I counted about thirty, many of which were within a few 
feet of each other. The water was from two to three feet deep and the ground not 
very muddy, so that I could examine each one without much difficulty. A large number 
were old nests, serving, evidently, for the old males as lodging places for the night; ten 
contained eggs, while the rest were in all states of incompleteness. The materials 
recently gathered were invariably saturated with water, and every nest was built from 
one to two feet above the water’s surface. Most of them were plastered inside with 
mud and lined with fine grasses. The small entrance hole, sometimes not plainly visible, 
was usually a little above the centre of the globe; but, in some cases, it was nearer the 
