123 
WOOD WREN. 
Troglodytes americanus, Aud . 
PLATE CXIX.— Male. % 
I feel much pleasure in introducing this new species to you, a family of 
which were shot by my sons in a deep wood, eight or ten miles from East- 
port in Maine, in the summer of 1832. The young were following their 
parents through the dark and tangled recesses of their favourite places of 
abode, busily engaged in search of their insect prey ; but their nest was 
not seen. Some weeks afterwards three adult birds of the same kind were 
shot near Dennisville in the same district ; and, on shewing them to my 
young and intelligent friend Thomas Lincoln, Esq. he told me that they 
bred in hollow logs in the woods, and seldom if ever approached the 
farms. He had seen the eggs, but, considering it a common species there, 
had made no notes of their number or colour ; nor had he attended to the 
form or materials of their nest. My drawing was made at that place. 
In winter, while at Charleston, South Carolina, I saw many of them: 
they had much the same habits as in. Maine, remaining in thick hedges 
along ditches, in the woods, and also not far distant from plantations. I 
procured several through the assistance of my friend John Bachman, 
which now form part of my large collection of skins of our birds. The 
notes of this species differ considerably from those of the House Wren, to 
which it is nearly allied. I hope to be more familiar with the Wood 
Wren before my labours are completed, in which case I shall not fail to 
make you acquainted with the result of my observations. 
An egg of this bird, procured in the State of Vermont, and presented to 
me by Dr. T. M. Brewer of Boston, differs from those of all our other 
Wrens : it measures six-eighths of an inch in length, four and a half eighths 
in breadth ; its ground-colour is dull vellowish-white, blotched all over 
with rather large markings of pale purplish-red, and zigzag streaks of deep 
blackish-brown, more numerous around the middle than at either end. 
Wood Wren, Troglodytes Americana , Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. ii. p.252 ; vol. v. p. 469, 
Adult Male. 
Bill of moderate length, nearly straight, slender, acute, subtrigonol at the 
