129 



HOUSE WREN. 

 [Plate VIII.— Fig. 3.] 



Motacilla domestica {Regulus rufus)^ Bartram, 291.— Peale's Museum, No. 7283. 



THIS well known and familiar bird arrives in Pennsylvania 

 about the middle of April ; and about the eighth or tenth of May, 

 begins to build its nest, sometimes in the wooden eornice 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 larvse with which it constantly supplies him. If all these con- 

 veniences 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 the barn; two or three days elapsed before he had occa- 

 sion 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 com- 

 pletely 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 eco- 

 nomy of their household affairs. The twigs with which the out- 

 ward parts of the nest are constructed are short and crooked that 

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

 trance 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 ad- 

 mitted; within this is a layer of fine dried stalks of grass, and lastly 



L 1 



