> 88 3 .] 
Ingersoll 071 Coinmo7i Na7nes of A7nerica7i Bird$. 
77 
1 is concerned.* In Tomtit (Ohio Valley) and Sapsucker (Mary- 
land) for these birds, other errors are indicated. Buffon’s 
Torchepot (“pot-cleaner”) perhaps alludes to the smutty black 
! of the face. Chipinenee is a good name I have heard in South- 
j ern Massachusetts, describing its well-known note very accurately. 
Skipping such terms as Brown Creeper , Oven-bird , and 
others readily understood, I come to the varied tribe of Wrens, 
about which in the Old World so much of personal affection and 
legendary, not to say superstitious, interest gathers. Wren de- 
rives from an ancient root wrin , whence, we are told, came 
Anglo-Saxon words meaning to neigh (as a horse) , squeal (as a 
pig) or chirp (as a sparrow). But the neighing horse and 
squealing pig of which these words were always used were un- 
castrated animals ; and the literal meaning of wrenne in the 
Anglo-Saxon was the “ little lascivious bird.” Few words have 
suffered or admitted of less change than this during all the cen- 
turies of vicissitude through which it has passed. None of 
the names of our representatives of this family require special 
notice ; it may be mentioned, however, that Telmatodytes palus- 
tris is Tomtit in South Carolina and Reed Warbler in Rhode 
Island. 
The Frenchmen in Louisiana in the early days gave to their 
familiar Wren (probably the Thryothorus ludovicianus') the 
name Roitelet or “Little King.” This was a direct importation 
from Europe, and perpetuated a bit of folk-lore, which tells us 
that the Wren is the superior of the Eagle, and hence King of 
the birds, but a diminutive King, — hence Kinglet or Roitelet. 
This supremacy was attained by the trial of the birds, in congress 
assembled, as to which had the greatest powers of flight. The 
Eagle soaring above all the rest, thought himself facile princeps , 
when an impudent little beggar of a Wren that had slyly perched 
* Though it is true enough that it is an “error” so far as the general woodland habits 
of the Sittidce in the United States are concerned, yet I know of opposing instances. 
For example : My neighbor in New Haven this winter has been accustomed to feed 
a colony of gray squirrels by placing nuts of various sorts on his window-ledge, whither 
they go after them. The Nuthatches discovered, and two or three came regularly all 
winter, feeding upon the broken nuts and often flying away with large fragments in their 
beaks. They would frequently place a nut in a corner of the window-frame, where 
it would rest firmly, and then hammer at it with their pickax-beaks most sedulously, 
breaking the shells of the lighter sorts, and crushing the inner septa of the heavy kinds 
like hickory nuts. They did not seek worms, but fed greedily upon the substance of 
the nut-kernel. 
