74 LAND-BIRDS. 



a. 4|-5J inches long. Above, rather dark Wren brown. 

 Below, Ught creamy or grayish brown (rarely rusty brown). 

 Everywhere finely " waved " with darker brown, but not con- 

 spicuously on the crown. Coloration, variable. Superciliary 

 line, sometimes whitish. Tail 1|— 2 inches long. 



b. The nest, generally a heap of twigs lined with warmer 

 materials, is usually built in a bird-box, or in a hole of a post 

 or tree ; but also it is often built in very extraordinary situar 

 tions, such as the sleeve of a coat (Wilson), a clay pot, a dis- 

 used spout, or other equally odd place. The eggs of each set 

 are six to nine ; like those of the Long-biUed Marsh Wren 

 (§ 7, II, 5), but much lighter and more reddish ; they average 

 about .60 X .48 of an inch. In eastern Massachusetts, two 

 sets are occasionally laid in the summer, one usually appear- 

 ing in the first week of June. 



c. The House Wrens, though rare in the northern part of 

 New England, and so locally distributed in the southern por- 

 tion as never to be seen in certain parts of it, are yet common 

 in Massachusetts, Ehode Island, and Connecticut, and even 

 very abundant in some parts of these States. They usually 

 reach the neighborhood of Boston in the first week of May, 

 and leave it in September, when the frost has made it hard 

 for them to get their ordinary food, which consists entirely of 

 spiders, other insects, and their eggs. The House Wrens 

 frequent exclusively cultivated grounds, and the immediate 

 neighborhood of man, so much so as to be " very numerous in 

 the gardens of Cambridge," * and other like cities. They are 

 so fearless as to have built in occupied houses, and so imper- 

 tinent and quarrelsome as sometimes to seize upon the nests 

 of other birds for their own convenience, regardless of rights 

 of property or ownership, and they invariably drive away from 

 their own homes other Wrens who may have intruded. They 

 are, moreover, so brave as often to attack cats, generally with 



less numerons, but apparently more since driven all the Honse Wrens from 

 widely dispeised, in northern New Eng- Cambridge, hut they (the Wrens) con- 

 land, where it often breeds at rather tinue to breed in moderate numbers in 

 high altitudes and in places remote certain parts of Arlington, Belmont, 

 from the habitations of man. — W. B. Brookline, and a few other outlying 

 * The English Sparrows have long towns near Boston. — W. B. 



