PERCHING BIRDS. 
5 IQ 
winter, but failed to keep them alive, although they are often exposed for sale 
in the Paris bird-market. The wren generally rears several broods in a season, 
and the old birds attend their offspring with the utmost assiduity. 
The European wren is not, it must be confessed, much of a musician, but some 
of the South American representatives of the family are renowned for their 
powers of song. Among them stands pre-eminent the so-called organ bird, or 
warbling wren (Cyphorhinus cantans ) of the forests of Amazonia. “ When its 
singular notes strike the ear for the first time,” writes Bates, “the impression 
cannot be resisted that they are produced by a human voice; some musical boy 
must be gathering fruits in the thicket, and singing a few notes to cheer himself. 
The tones become more fluty and plaintive; they are now those of a flageolet, and, 
notwithstanding the utter impossibility of the thing, one is for a moment convinced 
that someone is playing that instrument. ... It is the only songster that makes 
an impression on the natives, who sometimes rest their paddles wdiilst travelling in 
their small canoes along the shady bypaths, as if struck by the mysterious sound.” 
The adult cock-bird of the common wren has the upper-parts reddish brown, 
banded, except the head, with numerous blackish brown bars; the eyebrows being 
dull white, as are also the under-parts, although varied with rufous. In Iceland 
and the Faroes this wren is replaced by the northern wren (T. borealis), which is 
larger, darker, and has the under-parts more strongly barred. 
Some twenty species are included in this group, all of which 
Cactus-Wrens. Jr . ® 1 ’ 
possess a stout compressed bill. The wings are broad, the tail 
graduated and fan-shaped, and the claws of the feet strong and much curved. 
Chiefly inhabitants of Central and South America, the true cactus - wren 
(Campylorliynchus brunneicapillus ) is found in California and Texas. Of the 
habits of this wren, Dr. Coues gives the following description, observing that 
in “the most arid and desolate regions of the South-West, where the cacti 
flourish with wonderful luxuriance, covering the impoverished tracts of 
volcanic debris with a kind of vegetation only less ugly and forbidding than 
the very scoria, this wren makes its home and places its nests on every hand 
in the thorny embrace of the repulsive vegetation. True to the instincts and 
traditions of the wren family, it builds a bulky and conspicuous domicile; and 
when many are breeding together the structures become as noticeable as the nests 
which a colony of marsh-wrens build in the heart of the swaying reeds. But it is 
not a globular mass of material, nor yet a cup; it is like a purse or pouch and also 
peculiar in its position, for such nests are usually pensile. In the present case, the 
nest resembles a flattened flask—more exactly, it is like the nursing-bottle with 
which all mothers are familiar, and this is laid horizontally on its flat side in 
the crotch of a cactus. It is constructed of grasses and small twigs woven or 
matted together, and lined with feathers. Including the covered way or neck 
of the bottle, leading to the nest proper, the structure is some ten or twelve 
inches long and rather more than half as much in breadth. The bird appears 
to be an early breeder. Dr. Cooper found it preparing to build nests about 
San Diego so early as the 26th February. The eggs are white, but so thickly 
flecked with small salmon-coloured spots, that a rich cast of this tint is given to 
the whole surface.” 
