WINTER WREN. 
189 
During 1 his residence here, lie frequents the projecting 
hanks of creeks, old roots, decayed logs, small bushes, 
and rushes near watery places,* he even approaches the 
farm house, rambles about the wood pile, creeping 
among the interstices like a mouse. With tail erect, 
which is his constant habit, mounted on some projecting 
point or pinnacle, he sings with great animation. Even 
in the yards, gardens, and outhouses of the city, he 
appears familiar, and quite at home. In short, he pos- 
sesses almost all the habits of the European species. 
He is, however, migratory, which may be owing to the 
superior coldness of our continent. Never having met 
with the nest and eggs, I am unable to say how nearly 
they approximate to those of the former. 
I can find no precise description of this bird, as an 
American species, in any European publication. Even 
some of our own naturalists seem to have confounded 
it with another very different bird, the marsh wren, * 
which arrives in Pennsylvania from the south in May, 
builds a globular or pitcher-shaped nest, which it sus- 
pends 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 general 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 deci- 
sively a species of certhia, and the winter wren a true 
motacilla, Indeed we have no less than five species 
of these birds in Pennsylvania, that, by a superficial 
observer, would be taken for one and the same ; but 
between each of which nature has drawn strong, dis- 
criminating, and indelible lines of separation. These 
are pointed out in their proper places. 
* See Professor Barton’s observations on this subject, under the 
Art. Motacilla Troglodytes ? Fragments, &c. p. 18; Hid, p. 12. 
