BROWN, OLIVE OR GRAYISH BROWN, AND 
BROWN AND GRAY SPARROWY BIRDS 
House Wren 
(Troglodytes aedon) Wren family 
Length — 4.5 to 5 inches. Actually about one-fourth smaller than 
the English sparrow; apparently only half as large because 
of its erect tail. 
Male and Female — Upper parts cinnamon-brown. Deepest shade 
on head and neck; lightest above tail, which is more rufous. 
Back has obscure, dusky bars ; wings and tail are finely 
barred. Underneath whitish, with grayish-brown wash and 
faint bands most prominent on sides. 
Range — North America, from Manitoba to the Gulf. Most com- 
mon in the United States, from the Mississippi eastward. 
Winters south of the Carolinas. 
Migrations — April. October. Common summer resident. 
Early some morning in April there will go off under your 
window that most delightful of all alarm-clocks — the tiny, friendly 
house wren, just returned from a long visit south. Like some 
little mountain spring that, having been imprisoned by winter 
ice, now bubbles up in the spring sunshine, and goes rippling 
along over the pebbles, tumbling over itself in merry cascades, 
so this little wren’s song bubbles, ripples, cascades in a minia- 
ture torrent of ecstasy. 
Year after year these birds return to the same nesting places: 
a box set up against the house, a crevice in the barn, a niche 
under the eaves; but once home, always home to them. The 
nest is kept scrupulously clean ; the house-cleaning, like the 
house-building and renovating, being accompanied by the cheer- 
iest of songs, that makes the bird fairly tremble by its intensity. 
But however angelic the voice of the house wren, its temper can 
put to flight even the English sparrow. Need description go 
further ? 
115 
