HOUSE WREN. 
185 
up with an old hat, nailed on the weather boards, with 
a small hole for entrance ; and, if even this be denied 
him, he will find some hole, corner, or crevice about 
the house, barn, or stable, rather than abandon the 
dwellings of man. In the month of June, a mower 
hung up his coat, under a shed, near the barn ; two or 
three days elapsed before he had occasion to put it on 
again ; thrusting his arm up the sleeve, he found it 
completely filled with some rubbish, as he expressed it, 
and, on extracting the whole mass, found it to be the 
nest of a wren completely finished, and lined with a 
large quantity of feathers. In his retreat, he was 
followed by the little forlorn proprietors, who scolded 
him with great vehemence, for thus ruining the whole 
economy of their household affairs. The twigs with 
which the outward parts of the nest are constructed 
are short and crooked, that they may the better hook 
in with one another, and the hole or entrance is so 
much shut up, to prevent the intrusion of snakes, or 
cats, that it appears almost impossible the body of the 
bird could be admitted ; within this, is a laj^er of fine 
dried stalks of grass, and lastly feathers. The eggs are 
six or seven, and sometimes nine, of a red purplish flesh 
colour, innumerable fine grains of that tint being thickly 
sprinkled over the w"hole egg. They generally raise 
two brood in a season ; the first about the beginning of 
June, the second in July. 
This little bird has a strong antipathy to cats ; for, 
having frequent occasion to glean among the currant 
bushes, and other shrubbery in the garden, those lurk- 
ing enemies of the feathered race often prove fatal to 
him. A box fixed up in the window" of the room where 
I slept, w r as taken possession of by a pair of wrens. 
Already the nest w"as built, and two eggs laid, when 
one day, the window" being open, as Avell as the room 
door, the female wren, venturing too far into the room 
to reconnoitre, was sprung upon by grimalkin, wdio had 
planted herself there for the purpose ; and, before relief 
could be given, was destroyed. Curious to see how the 
survivor would demean himself, I watched him carefully 
