WINTER WREN 



A WOODLAND SPRITE 



{Fig. 58) 



||V^ERY one who has offered it a home 



H ^ knows the House Wren, for he 



■ , rarely fails to accept our hospital- 



I "^^fe^ ^^» ''"*■ comparatively few people 

 m '^^\/sr7^ have met his little cousin who 

 -^—————^ comes to us in October, when the 

 House Wren goes south, and reniains until April, 

 when the House Wren returns. Winter Wren, we 

 call him, though in northern New England and Can- 

 ada he is a Summer Wren. But at all times he is a 

 Wood Wren rather than a House Wren. 



Fallen tree-tops or brush-piles in low wet woods 

 are his chosen haunts. From such safe retreats he 

 greets us with a rather nervous, impatient "chimp- 

 chimp," much like the call-note of a Song Sparrow. 

 With tail pertly pointed upward, or even forward, 

 he jumps in and out and bobs up and down, all the 

 time evidently as much interested in us as we are 



in him. 



169 



