WINTER WREN. 231 
Common summer resident. In this vicinity it arrives about the mid- 
dle of April and remains until October. Less common, or rare and mi-_ 
grant in South-western Ohio and in some isolated localities. When on 
its migrations it is found in woods and on the banks of streams. Some- 
times a pair may be found in woodland during the breeding season, but 
this is rare. Most of them finda convenient building spot in the vicinity 
of man’s habitation, often under the same roof. Their noisy, active, in- 
quisitive and combative disposition renders them among the best known 
of our semidomesticated birds. His song is difficult to describe, yet 
once heard is not easily forgotten. It consists of asharp chatter of waver- 
ing notes, so quickly uttered as almost to seem a prolonged and highly 
modulated, sometimes squeaky, trill, now soft and now piercing, it seem 
to change with every position of the bird. He often executes a pleasing 
fantasia on the wing. 
The nest is built in all sorts of odd places; a. half peck measure, an 
old seive, old hat, or the tattered habiliments of a scare-crow, all are accep- 
table to them, as well as boxes, holes in posts, chinks and crevices under 
rafters and cornices of buildings, and hollow branches of apple trees. 
Right manfully does he resent intrusion on his premises, and assails 
with impetuous vim beast or bird who ventures near. Pussy herself is 
put upon the defense while sheis meditating an attack, and when she 
raises her paw to strike, is forced to shut her eyes. 
The nest is composed of leaves, cotton, feathers, hair and other stuff. 
The eggs are from seven to nine, nearly spherical, and so thickly covered 
with small spots of reddish brown as nearly to conceal the white ground. 
They measure about .62 by .55. The House Wren is very prolific usually 
raising three broods in a season. 
GENUS ANORTHURA. Rennie. 
Bill shorter than the head, slender, nearly straight, conical. Wings much longer than 
the very short tail. Tarsus reaching to end of tail. 
ANORTHURA TROGLODYTES (L.) Cs. 
VAR. HYEMALIS (Wils.) Cs. 
Winter Wren. 
Troglodytes europewus, KIRTLAND, Ohio Geolog. Surv., 1838, 163. 
Trogtodytes hyemalis, READ, Proc. Philad. Acad. Nat. Sci., vi, 1853, 395.— WHEATON, Ohio 
Agric. Rep. for 1860, 365; Reprint, 1861, 7. 
Anorthura troglodytes var. hyemalis, WHEATON, Food of Birds, etc., Ohio Agric. Rep, for 
1874, 563; Reprint, 1875, 3—LANGDON, Cat. Birds of Cin. 1877, 4. 
Troglodytes parvulus var. hyemalis, LANGDON, Revised List, Journ. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist., i 
1279, 170; Reprint, 4. | 
