574 



WREN. 



apparently the scrapings from the barrels of writing quills, procured, 

 no doubt, from the sweepings of a neighbouring school-room. There is 

 a similar specimen in the British Museum. 



The statement of Colonel Montagu, copied by Atkinson, that the 

 Wren's nest is " invariably lined with feathers," is no less incorrect 

 than their maintaining it to be always adapted to the selected locality, 

 which is contrary to the facts just stated ; since I have seen a nest of 

 moss in a haystack, and others, of the same material, under the thatch 

 of cottages and barns, which agrees also with the observations of Mr. 

 Jennings. An anonymous correspondent of Mr. Loudon's, says, "many 

 Wrens' nests may be found which have no feathers ; but did you ever 

 find either eggs or young ones in them ? As far as my observation 

 goes, the fact is, that the nest in which the Wren lays its eggs is pro- 

 fusely lined with feathers ; but, during the period of incubation, the 

 male, apparently from a desire to be doing something, constructs as 

 many as half-a-dozen nests, in the vicinity of the first, none of which 

 are lined ; and, whilst the first nest is so artfully concealed as to be 

 seldom found, the latter are very frequently seen. The Wren does not 

 appear to be very careful in the selection of a site for the cock-nests, as 

 they are called by the schoolboys in Yorkshire. I have frequently seen 

 them in the twigs of a thick thorn hedge, under banks, in haystacks, 

 in ivy-bushes, in old stumps, in the loopholes of buildings ; and, in one 

 instance, in an old bonnet placed among some peas to frighten away 

 the blackcaps." 1 There can be no doubt, I apprehend, of these sup- 

 posed cock-nests being nothing more than the unfinished structures of 

 paired birds ; otherwise the story would require the support of very 

 strong evidence to render it credible. 2 That there are, in some instances, 

 a few feathers lining the nest, I have just had proof, in two specimens 

 brought me, one with seven eggs, and the other with six young ones. 

 Both of these had about half-a-dozen small feathers interwoven into 

 the lining, with hair. 



I have just been watching the proceedings of a pair of Wrens, who 

 had made choice of a rather singular spot for their nest — an exposed 

 corner of a hedge-bank, which the jutting out of an elm-root had pre- 

 vented the labourer's spade from beating down to the level of the 

 sloping turf around it ; and the only apparent inducement they could 

 have had for constructing their " procreant cradle" here, was a tapestry 

 of green moss, with which the root was covered, for otherwise it offered 



1 Mag. of Nat. Hist. iii. p. 568. 

 2 Architecture of Birds, Chapter on Dome Builders, p. 311. 



