-WREN. 137 
repeated that it sounds like a miniature watchman’s rattle; 
this is usually accompanied with a curtsying or dipping motion 
in the manner of the Redbreast.’ 
The nest, very large in size in proportion to the bird, and 
ordinarily of a spherical shape, domed over, but flattened on 
the side next the substance against which it is placed, varies 
much both in form and substance according to the nature of 
the locality which furnishes the materials and a ‘locus standi’ 
for it. It is commenced early in the spring, even so soon 
as the end of the month of March, the birds pairing in 
Hebruary. One found by my seeoiidl son, Reginald Frank 
Morris, this autumn, in the beautiful grounds “of Mulgrave 
Castle, near Whitby, the seat of Lord Normanby, was placed 
against the trunk of a large tree, about eight or ten feet 
from the ground, and was chiefly composed externally of dry 
leaves. Others are variously made of fern and moss, grass, 
‘small roots, twigs, and hay, closely resembling in most cases 
the immediate situation in which they are placed; some are 
lined with hair or feathers, and others not. The nest is firmly 
put together, especially about and below the orifice, which 1s 
strengthened with small twigs or moss, and is in the upper 
half and nearly closed by the ‘feathers inside. It is in thickness 
from one inch to two inches, and about three inches wide 
within by about four in depth, and outside about five wide 
by six deep. At times they are found on the ground, and 
also in banks, as well as against trees, even so high up as 
twenty feet, also under the eaves of the thatch of a building, 
in holes in walls, the sides of stacks, among piles of wood 
or faggots, or the bare roots of trees, and under the projection 
at the top of the bank of a river; one has been known to 
be placed in an old bonnet fixed up among some peas to 
frighten the birds, and one ,close to a constant thoroughfare. 
Mr. Hewitson mentions one built against a clover stack, 
and formed entirely of the clover, and so becoming part of 
the stack itself. 
The late Mr. Thompson, of Belfast, records one adapted from 
a Swallow’s of the preceding year, built against a rafter 
supporting a floor; another which did not present any ap- 
pearance of a dome and was placed in the hole of a wall inside 
a house, the only entrance being through a broken pane of 
the window; and another censtructed in a bunch of herbs 
hung up to a beam against the top of an outhouse, almost 
the entire nest being formed of the herbs, and the whole 
