132 



HOUSE WREN. 



HOUSE WEEN. {Sylvia domestica.) 



PLATE VIII— Fig. 3. 

 Motacilla domestica (Regulus rufus), Bartram, 291. — PeaWs Museum, No. 7283. 



TROGLODYTES (EDON.—Vielllot. 



Troglodytes oedon, Bonap. Synop. p. 93, and note p. 439. — Worth. Zool. ii. 

 p. 316.— The House Wren, Aud. pi. 83. Orn. Biog. i. 427. 



This well-known and familiar bird arrives in Pennsylvania 

 about the middle of April ; and about the 8th or 10th of 

 May, begins to build its nest, sometimes in the wooden 

 cornice under the eaves, or in a hollow cherry tree, but most 

 commonly in small boxes fixed on the top of a pole in or 

 near the garden, to which he is extremely partial, for the great 

 number of caterpillars and other larvae with which it con- 

 stantly supplies him. If all these conveniencies are wanting, 

 he will even put up with an old hat, nailed on the weather 

 boards, with a small hole for entrance ; and, if even this be 

 denied him, he will find some hole, corner, or crevice about 

 the house, barn, or stable, rather than abandon the dwellings 

 of man. In the month of June, a mower hung up his coat 

 under a shed near a barn ; two or three days elapsed before 

 he had occasion to put it on again ; thrusting his arm up the 

 sleeve, he found it completely filled with some rubbish, as he 

 expressed it, and, on extracting the whole mass, found it to 

 be the nest of a wren completely finished, and lined with a 

 large quantity of feathers. In his retreat, he was followed 

 by the little forlorn proprietors, who scolded him with great 

 vehemence for thus ruining the whole economy of their 

 household affairs. The twigs with which the outward parts 

 of the nest are constructed are short and crooked, that they 

 may the better hook in with one another, and the hole or 

 entrance is so much shut up, to prevent the intrusion of 

 snakes or cats, that it appears almost impossible the body of 

 the bird could be admitted ; within this is a layer of fine 

 dried stalks of grass, and lastly feathers. The eggs are six 



