CHAPTER XXVIII
THE WREN AND THE KINGLET
“Another highly talented architect, past master in the building of nests, is the wren, known in learned language as the troglodyte. If you ask me the meaning of this strange name I shall reply that it is a Greek word signifying ‘dweller in holes.’ Some inventor of names, more in love with Greek than desirous of being understood, thought he was doing a fine thing when he gave this big name to the little bird that worms its way into small holes as a mouse would. Perhaps my description will be more easily understood than his hard name. The troglodyte or wren is a fluffy bunch of plumage resembling that of the woodcock. With trailing wings, beak to windward, and tail erect over its rump, it is always frisking and hopping about, uttering the while its cheery cry of teederee, teeree, teeree.”
Winter Wren
“I know that bird,” Jules broke in. “It isn’t much bigger than a walnut, and every winter it [[215]]comes flying about the house, hunting in the woodpile and in holes in the walls, and darting into the thickest parts of bushes. From a distance you would take it for a bold little rat.”
“That is it, that is the wren. In summer it lives in densely grown woods. There, under the arch formed by some large upward-curving root coated with a thick fleece of moss, it builds a home for itself in imitation of the penduline’s nest. The materials it uses are bits of moss, which make the nest look like its support. It forms them into a large hollow ball with a very narrow opening on one side. It is lined with feathers. Occasionally the wren builds its nest in some chimney or a pile of fagots, a thick clump of ivy or a natural cavity in the bank of a shady stream. The laying consists of about ten white eggs dotted with red at the large end.
Great Carolina Wren
“When the weather turns cold, the bird leaves the woods and approaches our farm-houses. You can see it then, always busy and on the move, prying into dark holes in woodpiles, old walls, dead trees, and thick bushes, looking in every crack and cranny for all kinds of vermin that take up their winter quarters in the fissures with which old bark is furrowed [[216]]and in the cracks that occur in weather-beaten mortar. To gain an idea of their unceasing activity in this sort of research, you have only to watch them once as they go prying into a heap of brush, flying in and out on all sides of it without a moment’s pause for rest.”