HOUSE WKEN. 87 
only the crown or ‘erest is pale yellow. These birds are numerous 
in Pennsylvania, in the month of October, frequentin bushes that 
overhang streams of water, alders, briers, and particularly apple-trees, 
where they are eminently useful in destroying great numbers of 
insects, and are at that season extremely fat. i 
——~>———_- 
‘HOUSE WREN.—SYLVIA DOMESTICA.— Fic. 31. 
Motacilla domestica, (Regulus rufus,) Bartram, 291.— Peale’s Museum, No. 7283. 
TROGLODYTES DON. — Vitor. 
Troglodytes cedon, Bonap. Synop. p. 93, and note p. 439.— Northern Zool. ii. 
: p- 316. — The House Wren, Aud. pl. 83. Orn. Biog. i. 427, 
‘“Turs well-known and familiar bird arrives in Pennsylvania about 
the middle of April, and, about the 8th or: 10th of May, begins to 
build its nest, sometimes in the wooden cornice under the eaves, or in 
a hollow cherry-tree; but most commonly in small boxes, fixed on the 
top of a pole, in or near the garden, to which he is extremely partial, 
for the great number of caterpillars and other larve with which it 
constantly supplies him. If all these conveniences are wanting, he 
will even put up with an old hat, nailed on the weather boards, with a 
small hole for entrance; and, if even this be denied him, he will find 
some hole, corner, or crevice about the house, barn, or stable, rather 
than abandon the dwellings of man. In the month of June, a mower 
hung up his coat under a shed, near a barn; two or three days 
elapsed before he had occasion to put it on again; thrusting his arm 
up the sleeve, he found it completely filled with some rubbish, as he 
expressed it, and, on extracting the whole mass, found it to be the 
nest of a wren completely finished, and lined with a large quantity 
of feathers. In his retreat, he was followed by the little forlorn “pro- 
prietors, who scolded him with great vehemence for thus ruining the. 
whole economy of their household affairs. The twigs with which the 
outward parts of the nest are constructed are short and crooked, that 
they may the better hook in with one another, and the hole or 
entrance is so much shut up, to prevent the intrusion of snakes or 
cats, that it appears almost impossible the body of the bird could be 
admitted; within this is a layer of fine dried stalks of grass, and 
lastly feathers. The eggs are six or seven, and sometimes nine, of a 
red purplish flesh color, innumerable fine grains of that tint being 
thickly’ sprinkled over the whole egg. They generally raise two 
broods in a season; the first about the beginning of June, the second 
in July.* 
* The Wrens figured on this plate, and, indeed, all those of this northern con- 
tinent, seem to be great favorites with the country people, to which distinction, 
their utility in gardens in destroying caterpillars and noxious insects, their sprightly, 
social manner, with their 42an and neat appearance, fully entitle them. hey 1 
