THE 



Devoted to Agriculture, Horticulture, and the Household Arts. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts. 

 — Xenoplion. 



Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of 

 the State. — Sully. 



FRANK. G. RUFFIN, Editor. ' 



F. G. RUFFIN & N. AUGUST, Prop'rs. 



Vol. XVIII. RICHMOND, VA., FEBRUARY, 1858. NO. 2. 



For the Southern Planter. 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



In your last letter, Mr. Editor, you ask — 

 "What has become of those ornithological ar- 

 ticles, promised for the Planter V I fear the pro- 

 mise was a rash one, but shall make the attempt 

 to redeem it, and I now begin with the House 

 Wren, — Sylvia Domestica, of Wilson, Troglo- 

 dytes JEdon, of Audubon, and other systematic 

 ornithologists. This little bird, which is 4£ 

 inches long and 5} inches in extent of wings, 

 was a rare one, in this portion of the State 20 

 years ago. The first I ever saw, was at Air- 

 field, the residence of the late Col. Claiborne 

 W. Gooch, in the year 1830. The Colonel in- 

 formed me that a pair arrived there about the 

 1st of June the year before, and that, then, 

 there were as many as three pairs building 

 about his premises. The bird was a stranger 

 to him. He thought it was a creeper. I at 

 once recognised it as belonging to the wren 

 family, though previous to that time, I was fa- 

 miliar with but two of its species — the Winter 

 Wren and the. Great Carolina Wren. The lat- 

 ter had monopolised the barns and stables, and 

 out-houses, when unmolested, and was the only 

 representative of its family, who raised its 

 young with us, except the Marsh Wren. 



Fu the year 1840, a pair of House Wrens 

 reached Dunluce, the residence of my friend, 

 the late Tims. Roane. Toey built in a large tin 

 cup which had been left on the top of one of the 

 plates of his front porch, where they have con- 

 tinued to build as late as the year '1855, since 



5 



that, I do not recollect to have observed them. 

 On a bright morning, towards the end of May, 

 1841, what was my delight to hear one of these 

 sweet little songsters, chattering away in an 

 apple tree, near my own dwelling. In a day 

 or two afterwards he met with a female, whom 

 he had persuaded to unite her destinies with 

 his. He looked as if he would split his little 

 throat with his loud and continued trills. He 

 commenced examining every crack and cranny 

 about the premises. I mustered up several tin 

 cups, a gourd, and a horse's head, in which the 

 Great Carolina Wren often shows a predilec- 

 tion for building, and finally made a neat little 

 box for the enamored pair. All these habita- 

 tions were examined by them with curious eye. 

 Jenny was much taken with the gourd, into 

 which she would often enter. But none of these 

 things pleased the fancy of his wrenship, who 

 seemed determined not to surrender his prerog- 

 ative as head, even during the honey-moon, in 

 deciding this important question, so he arbi- 

 trarily settled upon a pudlock hole, in the west 

 gable of my dwelling-house. Here he began 

 to build by carrying up with the greatest ac- 

 tivity, sticks of quite a large size for him. — 

 Every now and then he would perch on the hori- 

 zontal limb of a locust tree, that was nigh, and 

 pour forth his lively song, with down-spread tail 

 and drooping wings, and feathers ruffled up, so 

 as to make himself appear nearly as large again, 

 as he really was. He would then make a sor- 

 tie against a pair of Cat birds, whose nest was 

 in a mulberry tree, about 15 feet from his own. 

 They had been by no means indifferent specta- 



