196 WAKE-ROBIN 
quently come into collision. A few years ago I 
put up a little bird-house in the back end of my 
garden for the accommodation of the wrens, and 
every season a pair have taken up their abode there. 
One spring a pair of bluebirds looked into the tene- 
ment and lingered about several days, leading me 
to hope that they would conclude to occupy it. 
But they finally went away, and later in the season 
the wrens appeared, and, after a little coquetting, 
were regularly installed in their old quarters and 
were as happy as only wrens can be. 
One of our younger poets, Myron Benton, saw a 
little bird 
“Ruffled with whirlwind of his ecstasies,”’ 
which must have been the wren, as I know of no 
other bird that so throbs and palpitates with music 
as this little vagabond. And the pair I speak of 
seemed exceptionably happy, and the male had a 
small tornado of song in his crop that kept him 
“ruffled” every moment in the day. But before 
their honeymoon was over the bluebirds returned. 
I knew something was wrong before I was up in 
the morning. Instead of that voluble and gushing 
song outside the window, I heard the wrens scold- 
ing and crying at a fearful rate, and on going out 
saw the bluebirds in possession of the box. The 
poor wrens were in despair; they wrung their hands 
and tore their hair, after the wren fashion, but 
chiefly did they rattle out their disgust and wrath 
at the intruders. I have no doubt that, if it could 
