123 



WOOD WREN. 



"^TROGLODYTES AMERICANUS, Jllld. 



PLATE CXIX.— Male. 



I feel much pleasure in introducing this new species to you, a family of 

 which were shot by my sons in a deep wood, eight or ten miles from East- 

 port in Maine, in the summer of 1S32. The young were following their 

 parents through the dark and tangled recesses of their favourite places of 

 abode, busily engaged in search of their insect prey; but their nest was not 

 seen. Some weeks afterwards three adult birds of the same kind were shot 

 near Dennisville in the same district; and, on shewing them to my young 

 and intelligent friend Thomas Lincoln, Esq. he told me that they bred in 

 hollow logs in the woods, and seldom if ever approached the farms. He 

 had seen the eggs, but, considering it a common species there, had made no 

 notes of their number or colour; nor had he attended to the form or mate- 

 rials of their nest. My drawing was made at that place. 



In winter, while at Charleston, South Carolina, I saw many of them: 

 they had much the same habits as in Maine, remaining in thick hedges along 

 ditches, in the woods, and also not far distant from plantations. I procured 

 several through the assistance of my friend John Bachman, which now 

 form part of my large collection of skins of our birds. The notes of this 

 species differ considerably from those of the House Wren, to which it is 

 nearly allied. I hope to be more familiar with the Wood Wren before my 

 labours are completed, in which case I shall not fail to make you acquainted 

 with the result of my observations. 



An egg of this bird, procured in the State of Vermont, and presented to 

 me by Dr. T. M. Brewer of Boston, differs from those of all our other 

 Wrens: it measures six-eighths of an inch in length, four and a half eighths 

 in breadth; its ground-colour is dull yellowish-white, blotched all over with 

 rather large markings of pale purplish-red, and zigzag streaks of deep 

 blackish-brown, more numerous around the middle than at either end. 



Wood Ween, Troglodytes Americana, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. ii. p. 452; vol. v. p. 469. 



Adult Male. 



Bill of moderate length, nearly straight, slender, acute, subtrigonal at the 



