it is not unusual to see two or three different species contending for one box.

THE HOUSE-WREN.

The bird whose notes serve more than any other species to enliven our summer noondays is the common House-Wren. It is said to breed chiefly in the Middle States, but is very common in our New England villages, and as it extends its summer migration to Labrador, it probably breeds in all places north of the Middle States. It is a migratory bird, leaving us early in autumn, and not reappearing until May. It builds in a hollow tree like the Bluebird. A box of any kind, properly made, will answer its purposes. But nothing is better than a grape-jar, prepared by drilling a hole in its side, just large enough for the Wren, and setting it up on a perpendicular branch sawed off and inserted into the mouth of the jar. The bird fills it with sticks before it makes a nest, and the mouth of the jar serves for drainage.

The Wren is one of the most restless of the feathered tribe. He is continually in motion, and even when singing is constantly flitting about and changing his position. We see him in a dozen places as it were at the same moment; now warbling in ecstasy from the roof of a shed, then, with his wings spread and his feathers ruffled, scolding furiously at a Bluebird or a Swallow that has alighted on his box, or driving a Robin from a neighboring cherry-tree. Instantly we observe him running along a stone-wall and diving down and in and out, from one side to the other, through its openings, with all the nimbleness of a squirrel. He is on the ridge of the barn roof, he is peeping into the dove-cote, he is in the garden under the currant-bushes, or chasing a spider under a cabbage-leaf. Again he is on the roof of a shed,

warbling vociferously; and these manœuvres and peregrinations have occupied hardly a minute, so rapid and incessant are all his motions.

The notes of the Wren are very lively and garrulous, and if not uttered more frequently during the heat of the day, are, on account of the general silence of birds, more noticeable at that hour. There is a concert at noonday, as well as in the morning and evening, among the birds; and of the former the Wren is one of the principal musicians. After the hot rays of the sun have silenced the early performers, the Song-Sparrow and the RedThrush continue to sing at intervals during the greater part of the day. The Wren is likewise heard at all hours; but when the languishing heat of noon has arrived, the few birds that continue to sing are more than usually vocal, and seem to form a select company. The birds which are thus associated with the Wren are the Bobolink, the Preacher, the Linnet, and the Catbird, if he be anywhere near. If we were at this hour in the woods we should hear the loud, shrill voice of the Oven-Bird and some of the warbling sylvians.

Of all these noonday singers, the Wren is the most remarkable. His song is singularly varied and animated. He has great compass and execution, but wants variety in his tones. He begins very sharp and shrill, like a grasshopper, slides down to a series of guttural notes, then ascends like the rolling of a drum in rapidity of utterance to another series of high notes. Almost without a pause he recommences his querulous insect-chirp, and proceeds through the same trilling and demi-semi-quavering as before. He is not particular about the part of his song which he makes his closing note. He will leave off in the middle of a strain, when he seems in the height of ecstasy, to pick up a spider or a fly. As the Wren produces two broods in a season, his notes are prolonged

to a late period in the summer, and may be heard sometimes in the third week in August.

THE WINTER-WREN.

We do not often meet with this bird near Boston in summer. He is then a resident of the northern parts of Maine and New Hampshire, and of the Green Mountain range. In the autumn he migrates from the north and may be occasionally seen in company with our other winter birds. In our own latitude, if the cold season drives him farther south, we meet him again early in the spring, making his journey to his northern home. While he remains with us we see him near the shelving banks of rivers, creeping about old stumps of trees, which, half decayed, furnish a frugal share of his dormant insect-food. He is so little afraid of man that he will often leave his native resorts, and may be seen, like our common HouseWren, examining the wood-pile, creeping into the holes of old stone-walls and about the foundations of out-houses. Not having seen this bird except in winter, I am unacquainted with his song. Samuels describes it as very melodious and delightful.

THE MARSH WREN.

I was once crossing by turnpike an extensive meadow which was overgrown with reeds and rushes, when my curiosity was excited by hearing, in a thicket on the banks of a streamlet, a sound that would hardly admit of being described. I could not tell whether it came from an asthmatic bird or an aggravated frog. The sound was unlike anything I had ever heard. I should have supposed, however, if there were Mocking-Birds in our woods, that one of them had concealed himself in the thicket and was attempting to imitate the braying of an ass. I sat down upon the railing of a rustic bridge that crossed the

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