80 ' 
BULLETIN OF TEE NUTTALL 
But it seems that here, at least, one extra nest is sometimes used' 
for the purpose of raising an additional family by a single pair of 
wrens simultaneously with the first brood ! This would scarcely 
appear credible if not made certain by close observation of the pair 
during the whole breeding season, while no others were seen within 
a circuit of a quarter of a mile; Like all other summer visitorSj 
these birds arrived much later this year than last, none appearing 
until about April 20, though some winter within one hundred miles 
to the southward. Whether the same pair returned, mentioned to 
have built here last year (in my article in the “ American Natural- 
ist ’’ for February, 1870, p. 90), is uncertain. I believe that one of 
that pair was killed by a cat, and the brood of young were certainly 
destroyed, June 14, by an unusually late and heavy rainj which ran 
from the eaves of my house into their box, after which the remain- 
ing parent bird disappeared. The present pair, however, lost no 
time in building, and, as if suspicious of their former home, built 
first in a house on the top of a post twelve feet high, which was 
occupied by a pair of Hirundo hicolor last summer. As soon as the 
nest was finished, the male began to build another in the old resi- 
dence, which I had moved to a safer place, where rain could not 
reach it. The female rarely assisted in this work, though I occa- 
sionally saw both there, and in due time the second nest was 
finished. Soon after the young in the first nest were hatched, and 
although needing much attention, the old birds still frequented the 
new nest, and I began to suspect that one of them was sitting on 
eggs there. This suspicion was soon verified by hearing the young, 
and seeing them fed. In this case each parent must have been 
sitting at the same time on a nest, perhaps taking turns, during the 
week that elapsed before the first hatching. 
The day after the first brood of six left its house, they reappeared 
at evening under the lead of the female, and all roosted there, the 
male meanwhile continuing to feed the other brood, and singing at 
almost every visit to them, from which circumstance I distinguished 
him. The next day, however, he seems to have taken charge of the 
fledged family and led them away to the groves, out of the reach of 
town cats, as after that the songless female alone attended to the 
remaining brood. 
As confirming the probability of one pair being able to raise two 
broods, I may quote from Dr. Brewer the experiment by which one 
female was induced to lay twenty-five eggs in one season, eighteen 
