Species V. SYLVIA DOMESTICAL 
HOUSE WREN. 
[Plate VIII. Fig. 3.] 
Moiacilla domestica [liegulus rufus), Bartram, 291. 
Tins 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 cornice 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 larvte with which it con- 
stantly supplies him. If all these conveniences 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 a barn ; two or three days elapsed be- 
fore he had occasion to put it on again ; thrusting his arm up tli • 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 economy of their 
household affairs. The twigs with which the outward parts of the nest 
are constructed are short and crooked that they may the better hook in 
with one another, and the hole or entrance 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 admitted ; within this is a layer of fine dried 
stalks of grass, and lastly feathers. The eggs are six or seven, and 
sometimes rune, of a red purplish flesh color, innumerable fine grains of 
that tint being thickly sprinkled over the whole egg. They generally 
raise two broods in a season ; the first about the beginning of June, the 
second in July. 
This little bird has a strong antipathy to cats ; for having frequent 
occasion to glean among the currant bushes, and other shrubbery in the 
* Troglodytes cedon, Vieill. Ois. de V Am. Sept.pl. 107. 
(171) 
