76 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
(b). The nest, generally a heap of twigs lined with warmer 
materials, is usually built in a bird-box, or in a hole of a post 
or tfee; but it is also often built in very extraordinary situa- 
tions, such as the sleeve of a coat (Wilson), a clay pot, a dis- 
used spout, or other equally odd place. The eggs of each set 
are six to nine; like those of the Long-billed Marsh Wren (II, 
B, b), but much lighter and more reddish; they average about 
*60X°48 of an inch. In Eastern Massachusetts two sets are 
occasionally laid in the summer, one usually appearing in the 
first week of June. 
(c). The House Wrens, though rare in the northern part of 
New England, and so locally distributed in the southern por- 
tion as never to be seen in certain parts of it, are yet common 
in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and even 
very abundant in some parts of these States. They usually 
reach the neighborhood of Boston in the first week of May, and 
leave it in September, when the frost has rendered it difficult 
for them to obtain their ordinary food, which consists entirely 
of spiders, other insects, and their eggs. The House Wrens 
frequent exclusively cultivated grounds, and the immediate 
neighborhood of man, so much so as to be ‘‘ very numerous in 
the gardens of Cambridge,” and other like cities. They are so 
fearless as to have built in occupied houses, and so impertinent 
and quarrelsome as sometimes to seize upon the nests of other 
birds for their own convenience, regardless of rights of prop- 
erty or ownership, and they invariably drive away from their 
own homes other wrens who may have intruded. They are, 
moreover, 80 brave as to often attack cats, generally with suc- 
cess. When not engaged in quarrels or robbery, in building 
or incubation, they are busy in hunting for insects, particularly 
spiders, in shrubbery, gardens, and orchards; and they do not 
ramble about in the gloomy recesses of wood-piles as the Win- 
ter Wrens do. But in winter, when far away from their summer 
homes, and yet enjoying warm weather, their habits are differ- 
ent from those with which we are here familiar. Mr. Allen, in 
speaking of their habits in Florida, in winter, says that they 
keep ‘‘so closely concealed that it is difficult to shoot” them 
