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 intrude* 

 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 ot 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- 



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