House wren

“ It breeds throughout the United States, except for the South Atlantic and Gulf areas, and also nests in southern Canada. It winters in the southern United States and Mexico.
The rich, bubbling song of the familiar little house wren is one of the sweetest associations connected with town or suburban life. Its tiny body allows it to creep into all sorts of nooks and crannies for its insect food. A cavity in a fence post or porch roof, a wren box, a hole in a tree, will be welcomed as a nesting site. Their food is grasshoppers, beetles, bugs, spiders, cutworms, ticks, and plant lice. ”

“ That was Jenny Wren," returned Dimple, more accustomed to creatures of woods and fields.
"Was it really Jenny Wren?" exclaimed Florence, delightedly. "I'm so glad I've seen her."
"Didn't you ever see her before? You have heard Mr. Wren sing, haven't you? Oh, how he sings! I think house-wrens are such dear, dear birds. We always put up boxes and cans and such things for them, for we like to have them around, and they can build their nests in quite small places. The other big birds try to drive them away sometimes, but we always try to protect them. ”

“ The people are to be congratulated upon having so jolly and pretty a singer playing hide-and-seek—the wren’s game always—in their house-yards and caroling under their windows. As a musician he far outshines the more widely known house wren, though that bird, too, is excellent company, with his pert ways, at once furtive and familiar, and his merry gurgle of a tune. If he would only come back to our sparrow-cursed Massachusetts gardens and orchards, as I still hope he will some time do, I for one would never twit him upon his inferiority to his Bewickian cousin or to anybody else. ”

“ The little nut-brown wren—nut-like, too, in his smallness and round, compact figure—with cocked-up tail and jerky motions and gesticulations, and flight as of a fairy partridge with rapidly-beating, short wings, that produce a whirring noise if you are close enough to hear it, is a familiar creature to almost every person throughout the three kingdoms, and is even more generally diffused than the house-sparrow. ”

“ It was a bulky house, and so overburdened its frail sedge supports that it lay almost upon the ground, with its little round doorway wide open to the sun and rain. They must have been a young couple who built it, and quite inexperienced. I wonder they had not abandoned it; for a crack of light into a wren's nest would certainly addle the eggs. They are such tiny, dusky, tucked-away things, and their cradle is so deep and dark and hidden. ”

“ The most familiar wren is our house wren which is fond of associating with men, building its nest near the habitations of its human friend. The nests are made of twigs and grasses and lined with any soft material the wren can find. The eggs are from five to six in number and are of a reddish shade."
"Now for Miss Miller's story!" cried Elena, eagerly. ”

“ Wren is a very industrious builder. One day I was resting inside an old tumble-down summer-house built into a steep hillside in a Surrey park, when, to my consternation, I saw a big black feather coming straight as a partridge towards me. There was not a breath of wind blowing at the time, and [Pg 65] the whole thing struck me as being most uncanny. Presently it stopped in a little bush, and I saw a wee brown wren behind it. ”

“ As the house wren is a prolific breeder, frequently rearing from twelve to sixteen young in a season, a family of these birds must cause considerable reduction in the number of insects in a garden. Wrens are industrious foragers, searching every tree, shrub, or vine for caterpillars, examining every post and rail of the fence, and every cranny in the wall for insects or spiders. They do not, as a rule, fly far afield, but work industriously in the immediate vicinity of their nests. ”

“ Some fifteen species are recognized in North America, of which the most familiar and widely distributed is the House-Wren (Troglodytes ædon) . These are bold, sociable and confiding birds, seemingly to prefer men’s society, building their nests in bird boxes that are erected for them, or in the most unexpected situations about buildings. They are one of the most beneficial birds that can be attracted to one’s yard, feeding wholly upon insects. Their songs are loud, clear and bubbling over with enthusiasm.
Wrens breed north to Maine and Manitoba and winter along the Gulf Coast. ”

“ It is amusing to see a sparrow try to work his shoulders through the small hole of an empty wren house, pushing and kicking madly, but all in vain.
What rent do the wrens pay for their little houses? No man is clever enough to estimate the vast numbers of insects on your place that they destroy. ”

“ It is a pity they should not stay with us all winter, these pleasant little friends of ours, like the European wren, who never migrates, and sings all the year round. It is true, among the half dozen varieties which visit us, there is the winter wren, who remains during the cold weather in some parts of the State; but we do not see him here after the snow has fallen, and at best he appears much less musical than the summer bird. Our common house-wren is a finer singer than the European bird ”

“ We can hardly help asking how it is that two birds so very closely related as the house wren and the [Pg 89] winter wren should have been chosen haunts so extremely diverse,—the one preferring door-yards in thickly settled villages, the other keeping strictly to the wildest of all wild places. But whatever the explanation, we need not wish the fact itself different. Comparatively few ever hear the winter wren's song, to be sure (for you will hardly get it from a hotel piazza) , but it is not the less enjoyed on that account. There is such a thing as a bird's making himself too common ”

“ Pierre, the first born, was now old enough to fly, but timidly stayed in the nest. Mrs. Wren noted with great anxiety that no sooner did she leave the tin-pot but up popped six little heads, and out upon a curious world gazed twelve little bead-like eyes.
"Do be good children while I am gone," she would entreat, when ready for market, "do keep your heads inside of the house. Pierre, put your head down in the nest instantly, do you hear me!" and little Mrs. Wren would stand on the edge of the tin-pot and fussily cry krup, up, up, which in Wren language means, you naughty, naughty, birds. ”

“ Why, keeping house and raising a family is just no trouble at all. Indeed—" but here Mrs. Wren's thoughts were broken in upon by the arrival of Mrs. John, who announced, as she perched upon the rim of the tin-pot and looked disdainfully around, that she had but a very few minutes to stay.
"So this is the cozy nest your husband is so fond of talking about," she said, her bill in the air. "My, my, whatever possessed you, my dear, to begin housekeeping in such humble quarters. Everything in this world depends upon appearances; the sooner you find that out, Jenny, the better. ”

“ Moreover, this is often the only desirable species which can be induced to build in so civilized and restricted a place as a small city lot. Slab construction may be employed or old weathered boards used, but new lumber seems nearly or quite as welcome to the wren.
Plate III illustrates a wren house and gives directions for building. Distance from the ground to the entrance of the house should be from 8 to 18 feet. The place safest from cats is on the side of a building. ”

“ Get out of my way!” Then she pushed out more of the same sort of stuff. Mrs. Sparrow tried to get in, and every time she put her head through the doorway she was pecked by Mrs. Wren. And she deserved it. She called Mr. Sparrow, but he could not help her, and Mr. Wren was so pleased that he sat on top of the tool-house and sang and sang and sang. To look at him you would have thought he was trying to kill himself. He puffed up his throat and swelled up his body and sang so fast that he seemed to be saying about four words at a time.
THE FIGHT FOR THE BIRD HOUSE.
“Good for you! ”

“ To destroy Worms in Gravel Walks, &c.—Pour into the holes a ley, made of wood ashes and lime; this will also destroy insects, if trees are sprinkled with it. Salt and water will do as well.
1062. Usefulness of the Wren in destroying Insects.—As a devourer of pernicious insects, one of the most useful birds is the house wren. This little bird seems to be particularly fond of the society of man, and it must be confessed that it is often protected by his interested care. ”

“ Mamma says Jenny Wren is a very neat housekeeper, and takes excellent care of her family. They are such friendly little birds. I love them better than any others."
"Do you believe you have any wrens' nests near the house, this year?" Florence asked.
"Yes, indeed, ever so many. I know just where to look for them. I'll show you some to-morrow. There's one in the funniest place.103 You know where the bamboo shade is rolled up at the side of the front porch: well, in one end of that a wren has built a nest, and mamma will not have the shade let down till the little birds are ready to fly." ”

“ The various species of wrens occupy more or less the whole country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The wren is one of our most [Pg 16] friendly birds and his presence should be encouraged about every farm, village, and suburban residence. ”

“ In England, in one corner of the piazza of a house, a swallow had erected her nest, while a wren occupied a box which was purposely hung in the centre. They were both much domesticated. The wren became unsettled in its habits, and formed a design of dislodging the swallow; and having made an attack, actually succeeded in driving her away. Impudence gets the better of modesty; and this exploit was no sooner performed, than the wren removed every part of the materials to her own box, with the most admirable dexterity. ”

“ Kilda wren, and as there is a native wren, or local race or Troglodytes parvulus, in every county, in every village and farm-house and wood and coppice and hedge in the United Kingdom. He is a home-keeping little bird, and when you find him, summer or winter, in town or country, you know that he is a native, that his family is a very old one in that part and was probably settled there before the advent of blue-eyed man and the dawn of a Bronze Age.
He is universal, and that gives one the idea that he is very evenly distributed ”

“ Habitat: House wrens are common nesters in shrubbery and brush throughout the northern two-thirds of the United States, but they winter in the southern states. They range from the plains to timberline throughout the Rocky Mountains. They are commonly found along the edges of woods, swamps, fields, and in orchards. ”

“ Among Twelfth Night Custom, none was more celebrated in Pembrokeshire in the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth than the “cutty wren,” though there are hardly any traces of the custom in Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire. The custom was something as follows:
Having procured a wren, the bird was placed in a little house of paper with glass windows, sometimes a cage or a lantern, or a box was used for that purpose, and often decorated with coloured ribbons, and “every young lady, and even old ladies, used to compete in presenting the grandest ribbon to the “wren.” ”

“ Nor is it restricted to the wren family, many instances being recorded where other species have beguiled the waiting days by an imitative housekeeping.
The house phoebe has been known to build a second nest while its mate was brooding. To all appearances this was an instance of over-developed domestic tastes. Nor did the experiment end with the completion of the duplicate nest upon which the male bird sat regularly for several hours daily.
Wrens do not take kindly to double houses, their warlike nature seeming to revolt against living friendly with near neighbors. ”

“ Next he flew to the top of the wren house, tripped along the roof, leaned over and looked at the little porches. Then he went down on one of them and looked into the room. That was as far as he could go. The entrances to these apartments had been made for the tiny wrens and not for bluebirds. When he saw the bluebird house in the tree, he flew to a branch just in front of it and looked at it a while. Then he flew back to the wren house and tried that again ”

“ Whether it be the beautiful and demure bluebird, “bird of happiness,” the sleek and immaculate swallow, the songful wren, “saucy and impudent,” the bustling and industrious chickadee, or the alert and noisy flycatcher, the native tenant of the bird house will be an interesting and entertaining neighbor, always prompt to pay his rent in one form or another or in many forms and with interest. Does one need any special excuse for offering hospitality to such a neighbor? ”

“ Habitat: Near the homes of man preferably, though in the winter many house wrens are found in southern woods. They dart in and out of wood-piles and brush-heaps, run along walls and fences, and seek shrubbery, vines, and orchards.
Nest: Of small sticks, lined with root-fibers or grasses, placed in a hollow of a tree, in a nesting-box, or some out-of-the-way place, such as a flower-pot, tin-can, discarded shoe, old hat, etc.
Range: Eastern North America. Breeds from southeastern Canada, eastern Wisconsin and Michigan, southward to Kentucky and Virginia ”

“ Of their married life there is absolutely no record; they probably lived chiefly in London, as Wren had a house in Scotland Yard, which went with the office of Surveyor-General.
One of Wren’s early works was the rebuilding, on a somewhat larger scale, of the Royal Exchange. ”