WINTER WREN. 
337 
the south in May, builds a globular or pitcher-shaped nest, 
which it suspends among the rushes and bushes by the river 
side, lays five or six eggs of a dark fawn colour, and departs 
again in September. But the colours and markings of that bird 
are very unlike those of the Winter Wren, and its song altogether 
different. The circumstance of the one arriving from the north 
as the other returns to the south, and vice versa, with some gene- 
ral resemblance between the two, may have occasioned this 
mistake. They, however, not only breed in different regions, 
but belong to different genera, the Marsh Wren being decisively 
a species of Certhia, and the Winter Wren a true Motacilla. 
Indeed we have no less than five species of these birds in Penn- 
sylvania, that by a superficial observer would be taken for one 
and the same; but between each of which, nature has drawn 
strong, discriminating and indelible lines of separation. These 
will be pointed out in their proper places. 
If this bird, as some suppose, retires only to the upper regions 
of the country, and mountainous forests, to breed, as is the 
case with some others, it will account for his early and frequent 
residence along the Atlantic coast during the severest winters; 
though I rather suspect that he proceeds considerably to the 
northward; as the Snow-bird [F. Hudsonia), which arrives 
about the same time with the Winter Wren, does not even breed 
at Hudson’s Bay; but passes that settlement in June, on his 
way to the northward; how much farther is unknown. 
The length of the Winter Wren is three inches and a half, 
breadth five inches; the upper parts are of a general dark brown, 
crossed with transverse touches of black, except the upper parts 
of the head and neck, which are plain; the black spots on the back 
terminate in minute points of dull white; the first row of wing 
coverts is also marked with specks of white at the extremities 
of the black, and tipt minutely with black; the next row is tipt 
with points of white; the primaries are crossed with alternate 
rows of black and cream colour; inner vanes of all the quills 
dusky, except the three secondaries next the body; tips of the 
wings dusky; throat, line over the eye, sides of the neck, ear- 
VOL. ii. — u u 
