The Marsh Wrens 
NEXT AFTER the frogs, the Tule Wrens are the noisiest choristers 
of all sunlit February swamps. One hesitates to call the medley of 
clicking, buzzing, and sputtering which welters in the reeds, music; but 
if one succeeds in catching sight of a Tule Wren, holding on for dear 
life to a cat-tail stem, and vibrating like a drill-chuck with the effort 
of his impassioned utterance, he feels sure that music is at least intended. 
Wrens are ever busybodies, and if they could not sing or chatter, 
or at least scold, they surely would explode. It is a marvel, too, that 
they find so much to interest them in mere reeds, now green, now brown, 
set above a foot or so of stagnant water. But, bless you! Do not 
waste your sympathies upon them. They have neighbors—Red-wings, 
Yellow-throats, and the like—and is it not the gossips of the little village 
who are most exercised over their neighbors’ affairs? 
The name “Tule” which we have applied to our Pacific Coast 
bird must not be taken to imply any divergence in general habits from 
the Marsh Wrens of the remoter interior. They are Marsh Wrens 
all, and they avail themselves of whatever cover offers,—tules (Scirpus 
lacustris occidentalis ) on Tulare Lake, cat-tails in the intersecting channels 
of the Monterey Gun Club, salicornia (S. ambigua ) in the San Francisco 
Bay region and in all coastal marshes where the supply of cat-tails is 
inadequate. In autumn the Tule Wrens leave the sheltered precincts 
of the ponds, and go roaming about through dry weed patches and 
adjacent chaparral. Here they are as noisy and as elusive as ever, 
and are in nowise aw T ed by their less usual surroundings. There is, 
doubtless, some invasion from the north and consequent crowding 
in winter. The swamps of Los Angeles County certainly contain (or 
fail to contain) more birds in winter than in summer; but whether our 
local birds stand by their guns in winter, we shall never know until 
we have put into force some comprehensive passport system. 
Nesting is a less urgent matter in the South, and Willett’s record 
of “six, slightly incubated,” April 15, 1904, seems to be the earliest 
record for southern California. We used to find them in March at 
Tacoma, and full sets were the rule by the first week in April. It is 
possible, however, that, as in so many other cases of California birds, 
this species, long familiarized to observation in the East, has not been 
closely studied in our State. Our students have been ever on the lookout 
for novelties, and it is a curious fact that Condors and Solitaires are better 
known to California ornithologists than Jenny Wrens and Titmice— 
mihi consents sum culpa. 
The eggs of Marsh Wrens, usually five or six in number, are so 
overlaid with tiny dots as to appear of an almost uniform wood-brown 
(wood-brown, army brown or verona brown to natal brown, scarcely 
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