286 LAND BIRDS 



full of enthusiasm at the day's close as he was at its be- 

 ginning. He is very friendly and sociable, allowing you 

 to watch him, and watching you with equal interest. 



When nest-building commences it absorbs the atten- 

 tion of both sexes, though the master of the household 

 still sings between loads. Such a mass of material they 

 manage to gather ! Shreds of bark, twigs, feathers 

 galore, straw, and often bits of plant-down, such as cotton. 

 The cavity is stuffed to its fullest capacity, and in the top 

 of the mass madam shapes a shallow cup to hold the 

 eggs. But these Wrens are capricious folk, and after the 

 nest is all ready they will often take a vacation and pay 

 no further attention to it for several days, or even a week. 

 Then, one day, you may see the female slipping slyly into 

 the nest hole while her mate sings louder than ever near 

 by, and you conclude rightly that the first egg has been 

 laid. She may lay another the next day or she may wait 

 a day or two, but as soon as there are five or six, she will 

 commence to brood. Fourteen days are necessary for 

 the incubation of those small eggs, and, at the end of that 

 time, a peep into the nest will reveal tiny, naked nest- 

 lings, a trifle less than one inch long, with knobs for eyes 

 and little more than mere slits for beaks. Their wing- 

 bones are about one-sixth of an inch in length, and their 

 legs are not much longer. But they double their weight 

 every twenty-four hours, and at the end of four days they 

 have down on heads and along the feather tracts, and 

 look much more like birds. The beak also has taken 

 shape and is more or less firmly cartilaginous. On the fifth 

 day the eyes open. Up to this time they have been fed 



