The Western Winter Wren 
winter common resident and visitant in suitable localities of northern and central 
California west of the Sierras, and sparingly south through the San Diegan district. 
A record for Santa Cruz Island (by C. B. Linton, Oct. 23, 1908). 
Authorities.—Xantus (Troglodytes hyemalis), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. 
xi., 1859, p. 191 (Ft. Tejon); Sheldon, Condor, vol. x., 1908, p. 120 (desc. nests and eggs); 
Grinnell, Sierra Club Bull., vol. viii., 1911, p. 122 (Yosemite Valley; desc. nests); Willett, 
Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 102 (occurrence in s. Calif.); Davis, Condor, vol. 
xx., 1918, p. 190 (Eureka; nest and eggs; nesting dates); Oberholser, Proc. U. S. Nat. 
Mus., vol. lv., 1919, p. 236 (monogr.; syst.). 
CHICK—chick chick—chick chick; it is the W in ter Wren’s way of 
saying How-do-you-do? when you invade his domain in the damp forest. 
The voice is a size too large for such a mite of a bird, and one does not 
understand its circumflexed quality until he sees its possessor making 
an emphatic curtsy with each utterance. It is not every day that the 
recluse beholds a man, and it may be that he has stolen a march under 
cover of the ferns and underbrush, before touching off his little mine 
of interrogatives at your knees. If so, his brusque little being is softened 
by a friendly twinkle, as he notes your surprise, and then darts back 
chuckling to the cover of a fallen log. 
Again, if your entrance into the woods has been unnoticed, so that 
the little huntsman comes upon you in the regular way of business, it 
is amusing to watch with what ruses of circumvention he seeks to inspect 
you. Now he appears above a root on your right, gawking on tiptoe; 
then drops at a flash behind its shelter to reprove himself in upbraiding 
chick chick's for his rashness. Then, after a minute of apprehensive 
silence on your part, a chuckle at your other elbow announces that the 
inspection is satisfactorily completed on that side. The Lilliputian 
has you at his mercy, Mr. Gulliver. 
The Western Winter Wren is one of the commonest birds in the 
humid coast belt of western California as far south as middle Monterey 
County. Not only is it the most characteristic inhabitant of rugged 
stream beds and romantic dells, but it may be found throughout the 
somber depths of the fir and redwood forests, from sea-level nearly to 
the tops of the northern mountains. It is fond of the wilderness, and 
has learned no necessity of dependence upon man, although it by no 
means shuns the edges of town, if there be sufficient damp cover avail¬ 
able. Because of the broken and discontinuous character of the fir 
forests of the western Sierras, the Winter WTen is found there only 
rarely and locally in summer, and it has not yet been reported as breeding 
south of the Yosemite. Pine country is altogether too dry for our hero, 
or perhaps he feels that his dark costume is out of place in full sunshine. 
On the other hand, I once encountered these birds, in some numbers and 
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