"Why, Uncle Horace, you did not say anything about their living in caves."
"No, I did not, Bennie, nor do I think they ever go into caves. Still, the name is a very correct one, as applying to their habits. If you will carefully watch this pair out here behind the barn, you will see for yourself. There is no nook or corner about there which you will not see them prying into."
"Here comes one of them now, Uncle Horace, out through the stone fence. He is going to scold us for being here to watch him. You need not mind it, little fellow; we shall not hurt you. But what makes him keep his tail held up so straight? Some of the time he almost lays it over on his back."
"I was about to call your attention to that very thing. That is one of their singular peculiarities. All of this tribe of the wrens have that curious habit. By 'this tribe,' I mean those species which so much resemble the common wren of Europe or the house wren of America, for there are others which are quite distinct from them, and which do not carry their tails in that manner. Look at the drawing, and you will see that the bird on the top of the nest has his tail raised, though scarcely so remarkably as our friend here on the fence, but still it is enough to show his tendency. Now we have here, in our Northern and Eastern States especially, another species which commonly comes to us only in the winter instead of being here, as this bird is, during the summer. Though he lives more in the woods, and does not very often come about houses, yet they are very similar to the house wren, and you would notice them at once because of this habit of carrying the tail erect; and it would be the same with the wood wren, and also with the queer little fellows who live in the marshes, the marsh wrens."
"And then are there others which are not like them—not what you call of the same 'tribe'?"
"Yes, in our Southern States, and even no further south than Delaware, we find a species decidedly larger than our house wren, and having no resemblance to it as far as familiarity with men and houses is concerned. It is the great Carolina wren, and from seeing this species now before us you would scarcely imagine that to be a wren at all. He lives in the woods, he carries his tail as a robin or a bluebird does, and his song is not like the few trilling and twittering notes of the house wren. He pours out a flood of music that is similar to that of a thrush; you can scarcely believe when you see him that so much power of notes can come from a body so small."
"I see in this drawing, Uncle Horace, that the European species makes a nest with only a hole in the side. I have seen a robin's nest, and several swallows' nests, and sparrows' nests, and they were all open on the top, like a cup; they were not covered."
"No, that is very true, Ben. That is the way in which the greater number of birds build. But many of the wrens have the propensity to arch their nests over. The one in the drawing is represented correctly. They always seem determined to have an arch, even if it is not needed—if there is an arch there already. One pair, I recollect, built their nest inside a small gourd shell. The top of the shell arched over so close that the back of the bird as she sat in the nest almost touched the shell, but she had not been contented without having an arch of her own, and she had actually made one no thicker than fine paper. It seemed to me that it was only one layer of fine fibres, hair, grass etc. But there it was, an arch, and she was doubtless contented."
"What did you mean by the marsh wrens being queer little fellows?"
"They are queer fellows, sure enough. Queer in their nests, queer in their song, queer in the places they choose for their homes. They are of two species, quite closely resembling each other, and yet one will never live where the water is fresh, and the other will live only where it is fresh. The first is seen only on the salt-marshes, and yet its habits are almost the same as those of the fresh-water bird. They build nests almost alike, and yet they never put them in similar places. In going across a salt-marsh you often see a tuft of the tall coarse grasses, of which the stems have been woven and bound together into a sort of column, and then in their top, two or three feet from the ground, is a large coarse ball of long leaves and fibres, of the size of a child's head. This is the nest of a marsh wren. Now you may cross the fresh-water marshes all day long, and you will see no such thing, and yet you will see numbers of the short-billed marsh wrens, and you will pass many of their nests, and the nests will look almost exactly like those perched up in the tops of the salt-water grasses, but you will not see them unless you know where to look. Why? Because instead of being away up on the grasses, they are placed at the roots. Can you tell why they differ so in their nest-building? I can not. Each nest, of either species, is a coarse ball, as already mentioned, with a round hole on the side, and inside is the real nest, a beautifully smooth and comfortable place for the bird and her young."