208 MARSH WREN. 



wren arrives in Pennsylvania about the middle of May, or as 

 soon as the reeds and a species of nymphea, usually called 

 splatter-docks, which grow in great luxuriance along the tide 

 water of our rivers, are sufficiently high to shelter it. To 

 such places it almost wholly limits its excursions, seldom ven- 

 turing far from the river. Its food consists of flying insects 

 and their larvae, and a species of green grasshoppers that 

 inhabit the reeds. As to its notes, it would be mere burlesque 

 to call them by the name of song. Standing on the reedy 

 borders of the Schuylkill or Delaware, in the month of June, 

 you hear a low, crackling sound, something similar to that 

 produced by air bubbles forcing their way through mud or 

 boggy ground when trod upon ; this is the song of the marsh 

 wren. But as, among the human race, it is not given to one 

 man to excel in every thing, and yet each, perhaps, has some- 

 thing peculiarly his own ; so, among birds, we find a like 

 distribution of talents and peculiarities. The little bird now 

 before us, if deficient and contemptible in singing, excels in 

 the art of design, and constructs a nest, which, in durability, 

 warmth, and convenience, is scarcely inferior to one, and far 

 superior to many, of its more musical brethren. This is 

 formed outwardly of wet rushes mixed with mud, well inter- 

 twisted, and fashioned into the form of a cocoa-nut. A small 

 hole is left two-thirds up, for entrance, the upper edge of 

 which projects like a penthouse over the lower, to prevent the 

 admission of rain. The inside is lined with fine soft grass, 

 and sometimes feathers ; and the outside, when hardened by 

 the sun, resists every kind of weather. This nest is generally 

 suspended among the reeds, above the reach of the highest 

 tides, and is tied so fast in every part to the surrounding 

 reeds, as to bid defiance to the winds and the waves. The 

 eggs are usually six, of a dark fawn colour, and very small. 

 The young leave the nest about the 20th of June, and they 

 generally have a second brood in the same season. 



The size, general colour, and habit of this bird of erecting 

 its tail, give it, to a superficial observer, something of the 





