The Cactus Wren 
possible to pick out immediately the oldest member of the group, and 
it is more than likely to prove the occupied nest. 
The nest-linings are of the softest cat-tail down, feathers of wild 
fowl, or dried spirogyra teased to a point of enduring fluffiness. It 
appears, also, that the Wrens often cover their eggs upon leaving the 
nest. Thus, in one we found on the 17th of May, which contained 
seven eggs, the eggs were completely buried under a loose blanket of 
soft vegetable fibers. The nest was by no means deserted, for the 
eggs were warm and the mother bird very solicitous, insomuch that 
she repeatedly ventured within a foot of my hand while I was engaged 
with the nest. 
The Marsh Wrens regard themselves as the rightful owners of the 
reedy fastnesses which they occupy, and are evidently jealous of avian, 
as well as human, intruders. In one instance a Wren had constructed 
a sham nest hard against a completed structure of the Yellow-headed 
Blackbird, and to the evident retirement of its owner. Another had 
built squarely on top of a handsome Blackbird nest of the current season’s 
construction, and with a spiteful purpose all too evident. 
While there is no other conspicuous distinction in habit between 
T. p. plesius and T. p. paludicola, it is worthy of note that the interior 
birds, breeding at high levels east of the Sierras, are obliged to retire 
in winter to the meager fastnesses of our southeastern deserts, and 
the more ample overflowed margins of the Colorado River and “New” 
River. Many, however, spill over at this season into the San Diego 
district, where they mingle with the resident form, paludicola, and there 
is a suspicion that the resident stock of the Great Valley (San Joaquin- 
Sacramento) is slightly diluted in winter. 
No. 133 
Cactus Wren 
A. O. U. No. 713. Heleodytes brunneicapillus couesi (Sharpe). 
Description. — Adult: Pileum and nape warm brown (argus brown to Prout’s 
brown), the former with dusky mesial streaks; back and scapulars, broadly, pale grayish 
brown, highly varied by mesial white in streaks and stripes, and submesial dusky; 
flight-feathers (and in a lesser degree their coverts) dusky, spotted with white and 
brownish on outer webs, and broadly with white on inner webs (the spots forming bars 
on closed wing); tail (upper aspect) blackish, finely and irregularly barred with pale 
grayish brown; concealed webs of lateral rectrices chiefly black, the outermost pair 
black-and-white-barred throughout; the remaining pairs with at least a subterminal 
band of white; a prominent superciliary, continued to bill, white; post-ocular area 
clear brown; cheeks mingled brown and white; underparts basally white, immaculate 
on chin and upper throat, tinged with pale cinnamon on belly and crissum; the sides of 
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