34 Birds Every Child Should Know 
not find a house to let? Wrens really prefer 
boxes to the holes in stumps and trees they 
used to occupy before there were any white 
people with thoughtful children on this con- 
tinent. But the little tots have been known to 
build in tin cans, coat pockets, old shoes, mit- 
tens, hats, glass jars, and even inside a human 
skull that a medical student hung out in the 
sun to bleach ! 
When you are sound asleep some April morn- 
ing, a tiny brown bird, just returned from a long 
visit south of the Carolinas, will probably alight 
on the perch in front of one of your boxes, peep 
in the doorhole, enter — although his pert 
little cocked-up-tail has to be lowered to let 
him through — ^look about with approval, go 
out, spring to the roof and pour out of his 
wee throat a gushing torrent of music. The 
song seems to bubble up faster than he can 
sing. “Foive notes to wanst” was an Irish- 
man’s description of it. After the wren’s 
happy discovery of a place to live, his song will 
go off in a series of musical explosions all day 
long, now from the roof, now from the clothes- 
posts, the fence, the barn, or the wood-pile. 
There never was a more tireless, spirited, bril- 
liant singer. From the intensity of his feelings, 
he sometimes droops that expressive little tail 
of his, which is usually so erect and saucy. 
With characteristic energy, he frequently 
