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OUR HOME BIRDS. 
87 . 
“But that ugly great cat!” moaned Edith. “I 
hope they punished her well for killing the poor 
little wren.” 
“ It is the nature of cats to kill birds,” replied Miss 
Harson, “ but it must seem very dreadful when it is 
some particular little bird that we care about. We 
will turn to something pleasanter now, which is a 
description of the wren’s singing. One of his friends 
says : ‘ About the middle of March the song of the 
wren is among the most frequent sounds of the coun- 
try. At this season one may often hear in a garden 
the roundelay of a wren poured forth from the con- 
cealment of a low shrub ; and immediately that it is 
completed a precisely similar lay bursts forth from 
another bush some twenty yards off. No sooner is 
this ended than it is answered ; and so the vocal duel 
proceeds, the birds never interfering with each other’s 
song, but uttering in turns the same combinations 
and arrangement of notes, just as if they were read- 
ing off copies of a score printed from the same type.’ 
“ Some one else actually saw a mother- wren teach- 
ing her little brood to sing : ‘ A wren built her nest 
in a box so situated that a family had an opportunity 
of observing the mother-bird instructing the young 
cnes in the art of singing peculiar to the species. She 
fixed herself on one side of the opening in the box, 
directly before her young, and began by singing over 
