92 BIRDS OF NEW ENGLAND AND EASTERN NEW YORK 



Nest, on the ground, often under the roots of an overturned tree. 

 EggSjoiten six or seven, white, speckled with reddish-brown. 



The Winter Wren is a common summer resident of the 

 Canadian Zone (see map, p. 16), a rare winter visitant in 

 southern New England, and a not uncommon winter visitant 

 in the lower Hudson Valley. It passes north in April, and 

 returns in September and early October, but it is rarer as a 

 migrant than its abundance in the north leads one to expect. 

 In winter and on migration it frequents brush heaps, stone 

 walls, or fallen trees, particularly along the banks of wood- 

 land streams. It seldom sings while migrating. It breeds 

 rarely in deep-wooded swamps on the upland of Worcester 

 and Berkshire counties in Massachusetts, and in southern 

 Vermont and New Hampshire, but as soon as one enters the 

 damp forests of Mount Grey lock in Massachusetts, the Cats- 

 kills, and the higher mountains of northern New York and 

 New England, the song of the Winter Wren becomes one 

 of the characteristic summer sounds ; it is as if the bird 

 had been uncorked, Thoreau said, and the song left run- 

 ning. 



The song is long and high, in two equally balanced parts, 

 the first ending in a contralto trill, the second in a very high 

 trill ; after a little interval the song is repeated or answered. 

 The Wren sings either from some high dead stub, or from 

 the mossy logs over which it creeps in search of food. 

 When alarmed on the breeding-ground, the bird utters a 

 sound like the syllables crrrrip, and at other times a sharp 

 chick, very like a note of the Song Sparrow, but quickly 

 repeated. It has also a fashion of bobbing or curtsying 

 when observed. When searching for food, it seems often 

 to skip, rather than to fly, from one log to the next. 



To distinguish a Winter Wren from a House Wren is a 

 difficult matter. Except in September, however, the two will 

 rarely occur together. The House Wren is nearly an inch 

 longer, and much of the additional length is in the tail ; its 



