438 
INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 
time in quest of the insects, chiefly crustaceous, which, 
with moths, constitute their principal food ; here unseen 
they still sedulously utter their quaint warbling ; and tship 
tsliip a day day day day , may, for about a month from 
their arrival, be heard pleasantly echoing on a fine 
morning from the borders of every low marsh and wet 
meadow, provided with tussucks of sedge-grass, in which 
they indispensably dwell, for a time engaged in the cares 
and gratification of raising and providing for their young. 
The nest of the Short-Billed Marsh-Wren is made 
wholly of dry, or partly green sedge, bent usually from 
the top of the grassy tuft in which the fabric is situated. 
With much ingenuity and labor these simple materials 
are loosely entwined together into a spherical form, with 
a small and rather obscure entrance left in the side ; a 
thin lining is sometimes added to the whole, of the linty 
fibres of the silk weed, or some other similar material. 
The eggs, pure white, and destitute of spots, are proba- 
bly from 6 to 8. In a nest containing 7 eggs, there were 
3 of them larger than the rest, and perfectly fresh, while 
the 4 smaller were far advanced towards hatching ; from 
this circumstance we may fairly infer that two different 
individuals had laid in the same nest; a circumstance 
more common among wild birds than is generally imag- 
ined. This is also the more remarkable, as the male of 
this species, like many other Wrens, is much employed 
in making nests, of which not more than one in three or 
four are ever occupied by the females ! 
The summer limits of this species, confounded with 
the ordinary Marsh-Wren, are yet unascertained ; and 
it is singular to remark how near it approaches to an- 
other species inhabiting the temperate parts of the south- 
ern hemisphere in America, namely the Sylvia platen- 
sis, figured and indicated by Buffon. The description, 
