pease Ey UGB ONS B Ue Bell N 45 
little birds decreased as summer residents, until very few of them could 
be found. In solving a problem of this sort it is well to have a large work- 
able acreage under observation and to study it intensively. No person 
can witness the despoliation of every nest by the House Wren, yet by 
the process of elimination taken together with a knowledge of his charac- 
ter the correct answer can be found. 
That the gentle admonitions of Mr. Ridgway have influenced the 
editor of one Audubon publication is attested by his magazine, which 
has ceased to advocate the placing of wren-boxes; but most of us seem 
to have needed the club. Speaking for myself it must be confessed 
that I may have sinned against my small bird neighbors, when for 
purposes of study, there has been tolerance, years ago, of two nest- 
ings each of Screech Owls and Sparrow Hawks. But there is only one 
sin that causes constant mourning in sackcloth and ashes, that causes 
me to lie awake nights visioning the future condition of our country 
with its bird population consisting mainly of those undesirable aliens, 
the Starling and the English Sparrow, together with Screech Owls, 
Bronzed Grackles, and House Wrens: that sin was the putting up of 
bird houses and allowing them to be occupied by House Wrens. It may 
comfort some people to learn that for this sin full punishment is being 
meted out in this world: except the Traill’s Flycatcher, whose vigilance 
and pugnacity protects his nest, and the Goldfinch, whose nesting comes 
after the wren’s frenzy has abated, can any other little birds hatch 
their eggs, since the House Wrens became numerous; the successful 
breeding here of small species is ended, they are becoming scarce as has 
been reported from Olney, Illinois. 
The cheerful twitterings of the Wren are pleasing, but no more so 
than the songs of the Warbling Vireo, the Yellow Warbler, the Mary- 
land Yellowthroat, and other small birds that he has robbed and routed. 
Some of these by second trials in more remote spots are still perpetuating 
their species, but in greatly diminishing numbers, wherever the House 
Wren has largely increased. For corroboration of this statement the 
regional lists of birds given in the ornithological magazines are cited. 
Some of the reports give the Chipping Sparrow as now rare where for- 
merly it was abundant. To be sure the species has other enemies; in some 
places the Blue Jay as well as the Bronzed Grackle, the (ere a bird, 
that, most unfortunately, is increasing in many ler Bad as it is ‘i 
does not sneak through all the small bushes and into bird houses. As for 
injury done by the English Sparrow one would do better to choose twenty 
of these rather than one House Wren. 
Again the ornithological magazines are the authority for the state- 
ment that the House Wren is extending its range. Reports of its recent 
appearance on Cape Cod and in the vicinity of Quebec have been given 
In the Wilson Bulletin for December, tg919, the late Dr. N. Hollister 
wrote of bird life about Delavan, Wisconsin, compared with what he had 
