670 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Adult: Above rusty-brown, darkest on head, brightest on rump; below soiled whitish, 
more or less tinged with rusty on the hinder belly; under tail-coverts whitish, crossed by 
four or five heavy black bars; a distinct white stripe over and behind the eye, often bordered 
with an imperfect line of dusky spots; a broad brown streak running backward from eye 
between the white streak and the whitish throat; wings and tail brown like back, narrowly 
barred with brownish-black; middle wing-coverts with a few white lines and spots. Sexes 
alike; little or no seasonal change. 
Length 5.25 to 6 inches; wing 2.20 to 2.50; tail 1.80 to 2.35. 
304. Bewick’s Wren. Thryomanes bewicki bewicki (Aud.). (719) 
Synonyms: Long-tailed House Wren, Song Wren.—Troglodytes bewickii, Aud., 
1827, Nutt., 1832.—Thryothorus bewicki, Bonap., 1838.—Thryothorus bewickii, Baird, 
1859, A. O. U. Check-list, 1886, and most subsequent authors.—Thryomanes bewicki, 
Ridgw., 1877, A. O. U. Committee, 1899. 
Only a little smaller than the Carolina Wren, which it resembles closely 
in general appearance, though decidedly grayer and paler in color. More- 
over, the outer tail-feathers are mainly clear black, conspicuously spotted 
and tipped with white. In habits the bird closely resembles the House 
Wren and frequently nests in the same localities, in fact, sometimes re- 
placing the House Wren in towns and villages. 
Distribution.—Eastern United States, west to the eastern border of 
the Plains and eastern Texas; rare east of the Alleghanies north of Maryland 
and Delaware; north irregularly in the Mississippi Valley to southern 
Minnesota. Migratory only along the northern border of its range. 
This is another rare wren which has been taken at only three or four 
points in the state and apparently is never common. It is possible that, 
as some observers believe, it is extending its range northward, but there 
seems to have been little or no change in the last dozen years. The species 
is included in Stockwell’s Forest and Stream list on the authority of a 
specimen said to have been taken at Niles, Michigan (perhaps by Barron). 
Dr. Gibbs took a fine male at Kalamazoo May 5, 1877, which was identified 
by Ridgway, and is now in the Agricultural College collection (catalog 
No. 5798). Dr. Gibbs states that a few others, perhaps as many as five, 
had been seen or shot in Kalamazoo during the four years previous. Covert 
records one as taken at Ann Arbor, June 3, 1878, and Trombley reports 
one seen April 15 and 16, 1894, and one May 8, 1897, both at Petersburg, 
Michigan. 
The most recent record for the species is that by Leon J. Cole, who found 
it nesting at Grand Rapids and gives the following facts with regard to 
its occurrence: 
“In the spring of 1894 I had an excellent opportunity to observe a pair 
of Bewick’s Wrens at Grand Rapids. I was not then acquainted with the 
bird, and no specimen was secured; but my description, written at the 
time, leaves no doubt of its identity. My first notes were written on May 
5 of that year, when a single bird was observed carrying nesting materials 
to a cigar box which had been nailed to the inside wall of a shed in my 
yard, with a small hole leading to the exterior. The nest building was 
carried on in a rather desultory way until the 16th, and never in this 
interval did I see more than the one bird, which I took to bea male. Much 
of his time was spent in singing and in flitting about in a small pile of 
lumber near by. For the nest he appeared to gather grass, bark from 
neighboring grapevines, and also employed to a small extent some strings 
