MICHIGAN ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB 9 
there in 1897. The year 1894 is not the earliest record for that locality, how- 
ever, for in Cooks ‘Birds of Michigan, published in 1893 (p. 142), Mr. 
Trombley is quoted as saying that it is a “summer. resident in Monroe Co., 
where it has nested three years in a bird box, identification certain ;” which 
would mean that he first noted it in the summer of 1891. In his list of the 
birds of Washtenaw County, published in 1881, Covert records a_ single 
specimen which antedates the above record by 13 years.’ It has not, to my 
knowledge, been observed in that county since that time, and the 
record was very unusual, since at that date it had not been authentically 
reported from Ohio, and was not known in Indiana north of Franklin 
County, in the southeastern part of the State. Dr. Morris Gibbs states that 
it is “rare, but several taken in Kalamazoo County ;” but no dates are given.” 
In the spring of 1894 I had an excellent opportunity to observe a pair 
of Bewick’s Wrens at Grand Rapids. I was not then acquainted with the 
bird, and no specimen was secured; but my description, written at the time, 
leaves no doubt of its identity. My first notes were written on May 5 of that 
year, when a single bird was observed carrying nesting materials to a cigar 
box which has been nailed to the inside wall of a shed in my yard, with a 
small hole leading to the exterior. The nest-building was carried on 
in a rather desultory way until the 16th, and never in this interval did 
I see more than the one bird, which I took to be a male. Much of his time 
was spent in singing and in flitting about in a small pile of lumber near by. 
For the nest he appeared to gather grass, bark from neighboring grape vines, 
and also employed to a small extent some strings and pieces of cotton that 
I laid out for that purpose. I have no good record of the song, but I take 
the following from my notes: “His usual song is short, but very pretty; 
and although it is not much like that of our common wren [House Wren] 
it resembles it in being slow at first, and more rapid near the close. He has 
many other songs [variations, it might perhaps better have been said], one of 
which is like the one described, only more slow throughout.” 
On May 16 two birds were seen, and it appeared to me from their actions 
that the one that had built the nest was attempting to coax the other bird 
to it. They were much annoyed during the day by a male Bluebird whose 
mate was sitting on five eggs in a bird house but a short distance away, and 
were frequently forced to retire into the lumber pile to avoigt his attacks. 
Whether for this reason, or whether for some other less apparent I do not 
know, but greatly to my disappointment both birds disappeared on that day. 
and I did not see either of them again. 
The nest I saved in its box, and it is now deposited in the Museum of the 
University of Michigan. I had made no description of the nest, and at my 
request Mr. Norman A. Wood has kindly sent me the following: The nest 
is in a box 6%4x4% inches, 3%4 inches high, and occupies about one-half of 
the space in the box. The foundation, or base, of the nest, is composed of 
‘Covert, A. B., “Annotated List of the Birds and Mammals of Washtenaw County, 
Michigan” (extracted from the “History of Washtenaw County’), March, 1881, p. 1706: 
“Thryothorus bewickii.—Bewick’s Wren. But one specimen of. this: bird: has been shot 
in this county to my knowledge (a male, June 3. 1878). This is also referred to by Ridg- 
way, “The Birds of North and Middle America,” Part oT; 1904, p. 554 (Bulletin 50, U. 
S. National Museum). 
*Cook’s “Birds of Michigan,” p. 142. In his ‘Annotated List of the Birds of Michi- 
gan” (Bull. U. S. Geol. -and Geogr. Survey, Vol. V., No:*3, ppr 481-497, 1879), Gibbs 
states for Berwick’s Wren (p. 483): “Rare; only a few taken in spring.” 
