46 BIRDS 



stopping to sing to her every other minute, he helps furnish 

 the cottage quickly, but of course, he o'verdoes it — ^he carries 

 in more twigs and hay and feathers than the little house 

 can hold, then pulls half of them out again. Jenny 

 gathers, too, for she is a bustling housewife and arranges 

 matters with neatness and despatch to suit herself. 

 Neither vermin nor dirt will she tolerate within her well- 

 kept home. Everything she does pleases her ardent little 

 lover. He applauds her with song; he flies about after her 

 with a nervous desire to protect; he seems beside himself 

 with happiness. Let any one pass too near his best be- 

 loved, and he begins to chatter excitedly: Chit-c hit-chU - 

 chit as much as to say "Oh, do go away, go qi^ckly! 

 Can't you see how nervous and fidgety you make me?" 



If you fancy that Jenny Wren, who is patiently sitting 

 on the little pinkish chocolate-spotted eggs in the centre of 

 her feather bed, is a demure, angelic creature, you have 

 never seen her attack the sparrow, nearly twice her size, 

 that dares put his impudent head inside her door. Oh, 

 how she flies at him ! How she chatters and scolds ! What 

 a plucky little shrew she is, after all ! Her piercing, chatter- 

 ing, scolding notes are fairly hissed into his ears until he is 

 thankful enough to escape with his life. 



What rent do the wrens pay for the little houses you put 

 up for them? No man is clever enough to estimate the 

 vast numbers of insects on your place that they destroy. 

 They eat nothing else, which is the chief reason why they 

 are so lively and excitable. Unable to soar after flying in- 

 sects because of their short, round wings, they keep, as a 

 rule, rather close to the ground which their finely barred 

 brown feathers so closely match. Whether himting for 

 grubs in the wood-pile, scramblng over the brush heap 



