334 
HOUSE WREN. 
antagonist. With those of his own species, who settle and huild 
near him, he has frequent squabbles; and when their respective 
females are sitting, each strains his whole powers of song to 
excel the other. When the young are hatched, the hurry and 
press of business leave no time for disputing, so true it is that 
idleness is the mother of mischief. These birds are not confined 
to the country; they are to be heard on the tops of the houses in 
the most central part of our cities, singing with great energy. 
Scarce a house or cottage in the country is without at least a 
pair of them, and sometimes two; but unless where there is a 
large garden, orchard, and numerous outhouses, it is not often 
the case that more than one pair reside near the same spot, ow- 
ing to their party disputes and jealousies. It has been said by a 
friend to this little bird, that “ the esculent vegetables of a whole 
garden may, perhaps, be preserved from the depredations of 
different species of insects, by ten or fifteen pair of these small 
birds,”* and probably they might, were the combination prac- 
ticable; but such a congregation of Wrens, about one garden, 
is a phenomenon not to be expected but from a total change in 
the very nature and disposition of the species. 
Having seen no accurate description of this bird in any Eu- 
ropean publication, 1 have confined my references to Mr. Bar- 
tram and Mr. Peale; but though Europeans are not ignoi'ant of 
the existence of this bird, they have considered it, as usual, 
merely as a slight variation from the original stock ( M. troglo- 
dytes), their own Wren; in which they are, as usual, mistaken; 
the length and bent form of the bill, its notes, migratory habits, 
long tail, and red eggs, are suflacient specific differences. 
The House wren inhabits the whole of the United States, in 
all of which it is migratory. It leaves Pennsylvania in Septem- 
der; I have sometimes, though, rarely, seen it in the beginning 
of October. It is four inches and a half long, and five and three- 
quarters in extent, the whole upper parts of a deep brown, 
transversely crossed with black, except the head and neck, 
which is plain ; throat, breast and cheeks light clay-colour; belly 
* Barton’s Fragments, Part r, p. 22. 
