A FAMILY OF LIVELY SINGERS 43 



then drops into the grasses which engulf her as surely as if 

 she had dropped into the sea. Like the rails, she has her 

 paths and runways among the tall sedges and cat-tails, 

 where not even a boy in rubber boots may safely follow. 



But she does not live alone. Withdraw, sit down quietly 

 for awhile and wait for the excitement of your visit to sub- 

 side; for every member of the wren colony, peering sharply 

 at you through the grasses, was watching you long before 

 you saw the first wren. Presently you hear a rippling, 

 bubbling song from one of her neighbors; then another and 

 another and still another from among the cat-tails which 

 you now suspect conceal many musicians. The song goes 

 off like a small explosion of melody whose force often 

 carries the tiny singer up into the air. One musical ex- 

 plosion follows another, and between them there is much 

 Avren talk — a scolding chatter that is as great a reUef to the 

 birds' nervous energy as the exhaust from its safety valve is 

 to a steam engine. The rising of a red-winged blackbird 

 from his home in the sedges, the rattle of the kingfisher on 

 his way up the creek, or the leisurely flapping of a bittern 

 over the marshes is enough to start the chattering chorus. 



Why are the birds so excited? This is their nesting 

 season. May, and really they are too busy to be bothered 

 by visitors. Most birds are content to make one nest a 

 year but not these, who, in their excess of wren energy, 

 keep on building nest after nest in the vicinity of the one 

 preferred for their chocolate-brown eggs. Bending down 

 the tips of the rushes they somehow manage to weave them 

 with the weeds and grasses they bring, into a bulky 

 ball suspended between the rushes and firmly attached to 

 them. In one side of this green grassy globe they leave 

 an entrance through which to carry the finer grasses for the 



