Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 



Undergrowths near water, brush heaps, rocky bits of wood- 

 land, are favorite resorts. The Carolina wren decidedly objects 

 to being stared at, and likes to dart out of sight in the midst of 

 the underbrush in a twinkling while the opera-glasses are being 

 focussed. 



To let off some of his superfluous vivacity. Nature has pro- 

 vided him with two safety-valves : one is his voice, another is 

 his tail. With the latter he gesticulates in a manner so expres- 

 sive that it seems to be a certain index to what is passing in his 

 busy little brain — drooping it, after the habit of the catbird, when 

 he becomes limp with the emotion of his love-song, or holding 

 it erect as, alert and inquisitive, he peers at the impudent intruder 

 in the thicket below his perch. 



But it is his joyous, melodious, bubbling song that is his 

 chief fascination. He has so great a variety of strains that many 

 people have thought that he learned them from other birds, and 

 so have called him what many ornithologists declare that he is 

 not — a mocking wren. And he is one of the few birds that sing 

 at night — not in his sleep or only by moonlight, but even in the 

 total darkness, just before dawn, he gives us the same wide- 

 awake song that entrances us by day. 



Winter Wren 



(Troglodytes hiemalis) Wren family 



Length — 4 to 4. 5 inches. About one-third smaller than the Eng- 

 lish sparrow. Apparently only half the size. 



Male and Female — Cinnamon-brown above, with numerous short, 

 dusky bars. Head and neck without markings. Under- 

 neath rusty, dimly and finely barred with dark brown. Tail 

 short. 



Range — United States, east and west, and from North Carolina to 

 the Fur Countries. 



Migrations — October. April. Summer resident. Commonly a 

 winter resident in the South and Middle States only. 



It all too rarely happens that we see this tiny mouse-like 

 wren in summer, unless we come upon him suddenly and over- 

 take him unawares as he creeps shyly over the mossy logs or 

 runs literally "like a flash" under the fern and through the tan- 



117 



