132 



HOUSE WREN. 



by this little impertinent soon relinquishes the contest, the mild 

 placidness of his disposition not being a match for the fiery impe- 

 tuosity of his little antagonist. With those of his own species, who 

 settle and build near him, he has frequent squabbles ; and when 

 their respective females are sitting, each strains his whole powers 

 of song to excel the other. When the young are hatched the hurry 

 and press of business leave no time for disputing, so true it is that 

 idleness is the mother of mischief. These birds are not confined 

 to the country; they are to be heard on the tops of the houses in 

 the most central parts of our cities, singing with great energy. 

 Scarce a house or cottage in the country is without at least a pair 

 of them, and sometimes two ; but unless where there is a large 

 garden, orchard, and numerous outhouses, it is not often the case 

 that more than one pair reside near the same spot, owing to their 

 party disputes and jealousies. It has been said by a friend to this 

 little bird, that "the esculent vegetables of a whole garden may, 

 perhaps, be preserved from the depredations of different species of 

 insects, by ten or fifteen pair of these small birds,"^ and probably 

 they might, were the combination practicable; but such a congre- 

 gation of Wrens, about one garden is a phenomenon not to be ex- 

 pected but from a^ total change in the very nature and disposition 

 of the species. 



Having seen no accurate description of this bird in any Euro- 

 pean publication, I have confined my references to Mr. Bartram 

 and Mr. Peale ; but tho Europeans are not ignorant of the exist- 

 ence of this bird, they have considered it, as usual, merely as a 

 slight variation from the original stock (M. troglodytes), their own 

 Wren ; in which they are, as usual, mistaken ; the length and bent 

 form of the bill, its notes, migratory habits, long tail, and red eggs, 

 are sufficient specific differences. 



The House Wren inhabits the whole of the United States, in 

 all of which it is migratory. It leaves Pennsylvania in September; 



* Barton's Fragments, Part I, p. 22, 



