larger and darker form of the present species, hardly distinct enough to be treated even as a race. Mr. Audubon met with an individual near Eastport in 1832. The young were following their parents through the tangled recesses of a dark forest, in search of food. Others were obtained in the same part of Maine, near Dennisville, where Mr. Lincoln informed Mr. Audubon that this bird was the common Wren of the neighborhood, and that they bred in hollow logs in the woods, but seldom approached farm-houses.
In the winter following, at Charleston, S. C., Mr. Audubon again met individuals of this supposed species, showing the same habits as in Maine, remaining in thick hedges, along ditches in the woods, not far from plantations. The notes are described as differing considerably from those of the House Wren. It has not been seen by Mr. Boardman, though residing in the region where it is said to be the common Wren. Professor Verrill mentions it as a rare bird in Western Maine.
Mr. Charles S. Paine, of Randolph, Vt., is the only naturalist who has met with what he supposes were its nest and eggs. The following is his account, communicated by letter.
“The Wood Wren comes among us in the spring about the 10th or 15th of April, and sings habitually as it skips among the brush and logs and under the roots and stumps of trees. In one instance I have known it to make its appearance in midwinter, and to be about the house and barn some time. It is only occasionally that they spend the summer here (Central Vermont). The nest from which I obtained the egg you now have, I found about the first of July, just as the young were about to fly. There were five young birds and one egg. The nest was built on the hanging bark of a decaying beech-log, close under the log. A great quantity of moss and rotten wood had been collected and filled in around the nest, and a little round hole left for the entrance. The nest was lined with a soft, downy substance. I have no doubt that they sometimes commence to breed as early as the middle of May, as I have seen their young out in early June.”
Mr. Paine discredits the statement that they build their nests in holes in the ground. The egg referred to by Mr. Paine is oval in shape, slightly more pointed at one end, measuring .75 of an inch in length by .53 in breadth. The ground is a dead chalky-white, over which are sprinkled a few very fine dots of a light yellowish-brown, slightly more numerous at the larger end. This egg, while it bears some resemblance to that of the Winter Wren, is totally unlike that of the House Wren.
Troglodytes ædon, var. parkmanni, Aud.
PARKMAN’S WREN; WESTERN WOOD WREN.
Troglodytes parkmanni, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 310.—Ib. Synopsis, 1839, 76.—Ib. Birds Am. II, 1841, 133, pl. cxxii.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 367; Rev. 140.—Cooper & Suckley, P. R. R. Rep. XII, II, 1860, 191 (nest).—Sclater, Catal. 1861, 23, No. 146.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 71. Troglodytes sylvestris, Gambel, Pr. A. N. Sc. III, 1846, 113 (California, quotes erroneously Aud. T. americanus).
Hab. Western and Middle Provinces of United States. East to the Missouri River. Western Arizona, Coues.
Although the differences between the eastern and western House Wrens, as stated in the Birds of North America, are not very appreciable, yet a comparison of an extensive series shows that they can hardly be considered as identical. The general color of parkmanni above is paler and grayer, and there is little or none of the rufous of the lower back and rump. The bars on the upper surface are rather more distinct. The under parts are more alike, as, while ædon sometimes has flanks and crissum strongly tinged with rufous, other specimens are as pale as in T. parkmanni.