FUSS AND FEATHERS 



their nests differ, or as soft green- moss and feathers 

 differ from dry twigs and a little: dry grass. A truly 

 sylvan strain is that of the winter wren, suggesting 

 deep wildwood solitudes, while that of the house 

 wren is more in keeping with the noise and clatter 

 of the farm and dooryard. He begins singing by or 

 before four o'clock in the morning, and for the first 

 hour hardly stops to take breath, and all the fore- 

 noon the pauses between his volleys of notes are of 

 but a few seconds. 



I find that there are good birdk>bservers who ac- 

 cuse the wren of destroying the eggs of other birds. 

 I have no first-hand evidence that such is a fact, 

 but the hostility of several other species of birds 

 toward the wren gives color to the charge. Why, 

 for instance, should the phcebe-bird make a sav- 

 age drive at him, if she has not ; some old score of 

 that kind to wipe out? or the song sparrow chase 

 him into a vine or a bush and keep him a prisoner 

 there for a few moments, as I have seen him do? 



As I was sitting on the platf orni of the fruit-house 

 one morning, watching the wood thrushes at nest- 

 building, there was a rustle of wings almost at my 

 elbow, and the snapping of a phcebe's beak. I turned 

 in time to see a brown speck darting under the 

 floor, and a phcebe-bird close on to its heels. The 

 speck was a wren, and the phcebe was driving for 

 it viciously. How spitefully her beak did snap! 

 As the wren eluded her, phcebe turned quickly and 



