LAND BIRDS. 675 
with canker-worms in Illinois, says: ‘Nearly half their food was canker- 
worms, with about 10 percent additional of other lepidoptera, 13 percent 
was beetles and 10 percent bugs, the latter including a few chinch-bugs. 
Two of the birds had eaten Psenocerus supernotatus, making 4 percent” 
(Bull. No. 6, State Lab. Nat. Hist., pp. 8-9). 
_ The song is a delightful little warble given with great rapidity and some- 
times continued much longer than at others. Usually it is repeated twenty 
or thirty times with only a few seconds intermission, and during the nesting 
season the bird sings from morning till night with the utmost energy, 
apparently fairly bubbling over with exuberance of joy. Bicknell says: 
“From its arrival late in April until after midsummer the full gong is 
heard, and though sometimes ending in July is often continued through 
the first week of August. August 15 is my latest date for the song. * * * 
With the change of the song (usually in July) a change of habits begins 
and likewise gradually progresses. The birds forsake the vicinity of 
dwellings and their accessory buildings. To the lay observer they have 
disappeared, but the experienced eye will detect them inhabiting the 
rocks and shrubbery of wild and unfrequented localities often remote 
from human habitation. In such places the autumn song is to be heard, 
though to one familiar only with the characteristic song of the earlier 
season its authorship would hardly be suspected. It has none of the 
spontaneity and vigor of the spring song, but is a low rambling warble” 
(Auk, I, 1884, 137-138). 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Adult: Olive-brown above, sometimes more rusty, sometimes more grayish, always 
more reddish on rump and upper tail-coverts; the wings and tail always distinctly barred 
with brown and black, and the same pattern often showing more or less distinctly on 
head and back; below grayish or brownish-white, lighter on throat and belly, darkest 
on breast and flanks; under tail-coverts brown, heavily barred with dusky. Sexes alike; 
seasonal changes slight. 
Length 4.25 to 5.25 inches; wing 1.90 to 2.15; tail 1.70 to 2.10. 
306. Winter Wren. Nannus hiemalis hiemalis (Vicill.). (722) 
Synonyms: Wood Wren, Mouse Wren, Spruce Wren, Short-tailed Wren.—Troglodytes 
hiemalis, Vieill., 1819, A. O. U. Check-list, 1886, and others.—Anorthura hyemalis, Coues 
and Prentiss, 1861.—Anorthura troglodytes hyemalis, Coues, 1872.—Olbiorchilus hiemalis 
hiemalis, Oberh., 1902. 
Similar in a general way to the House Wren, but with the tail much 
shorter in proportion and the feet decidedly larger. The upper parts, 
wings and tail are brown or rufous like those of the House Wren, but the 
under parts are much darker than in that species, being brownish-white 
or light brown from the chin to the middle of the breast, back of which 
the color deepens and the whole of the breast, belly and sides are barred 
with black. 
Distribution.—Eastern North America, breeding from the northern 
parts of the United States northward, and in the Alleghanies south to 
North Carolina, wintering from about its southern breeding limit southward. 
This tiny wren is a summer resident of by far the larger part of the 
state, but its habits are such that it is commonly overlooked in the summer 
and thus in the southern half of the state is known mainly as a spring 
and fall migrant. Possibly a few winter in the southern part of the Lower 
Peninsula, but we have been unable to find an actual record. It reappears 
