220 WREN.
Tneir flight, usually short and near the ground, is performed hi
a straight line, with repeated fluttering of the wings.
'I'he young are assiduously attended to by the parent birds, and
fed with insects and their larva? and worms, the same that they
themselves feed on; these, however, are not their exclusive food, for
they make free with currants in the season.
The note, which is heard throughout the greater part of the year,
but is not so powerful in the winter months, is very lively, clear,
and cheerful, and while uttering it, the whole body vibrates with the
effort, the hill is raised and opened wide, the throat swelled out,
and the wings drooped. It is generally given forth from the upper
branch of a hedge or bush, and when it is ended the singer descends
from her place in the orchestra quite 'a la mode.' I was
sitting in my breakfast-room one morning, when I heard a loud,
clear, ringing note in the garden, whose authorship I could not divine,
nor, nn going out to endeavour to do so, detect. The follow Lag
morning I heard it again, and this time was more fortunate. It was
that of a Wren! There he or she the 1 cantatrice' stood, pouring
forth a volume of song enough almost to make the very welkin echo
it. 1 was never more astonished at anything of the kind; it was so
utterly disproportionate to the size of the tiny bird. William
Thompson, Esq., too says, 'On the yard wall before my window in
the country, a. Wren once appeared on the 23rd. of September singing
with such extraordinary loudness as immediately to attract other
birds to the spot. First came a Hedge Sparrow to buffet it, followed
by a male and female Chaffinch, also with sinister intent, but it
maintained its position against them all, and sang away as fiercely
as ever. A Robin too alighted beside the songster, but, unlike the
others, did not seek to disturb it. For this strange proceeding on
the part of the Wren there was no apparent cause. 1 When a bird
of prey appears, the little Wren often gives the alarm, by uttering
rapidly its note of fear, 'shrek! shrek!' so quickly repeated that it
sounds like a miniature watchman's rattle; this is usually accompanied
with a curtseying or dipping motion in the manner of the Redbreast.'
The nest, very large in size in proportion to the bird, and ordinarily
of a spherical shape, domed over, but flattened on the side
next the substance against which it is placed, varies much both in
lb n n and substance according to the nature of the locality which
furnishes the materials and a 'locus standi' for it. It is commenced
early in the spring, even so soon as the end of the month of March,
the birds pairing in February. One found by my second son,
Reginald Frank Morris, in autumn, in the beautiful grounds of Mul-
WREN.
OO]
grave Castle, near Whitby, the seat of Lord Normanby, was placed
against the trunk of a large tree, about eight or ten feet from the
ground, and was chiefly composed externally of dry leaves. Others
are variously made of fern and moss, grass, small roots, twigs, and
hay, closely resembling in most eases the immediate situation in which
they are placed; some are lined with hair or feathers, and others not.
The nest is firmly put together, especially about and below the orifice,
which is strengthened with small twigs or moss, and is in the upper
half and nearly closed by the feathers inside. It is in thickness from
one inch to two inches, and about three inches wide within by about
four in depth, and outside about five wide by six deep. At times
they are found on the ground, and also in banks, as well as against
trees, even so high up as twenty feet; so, too, under the eaves of the
thatch of a building, in holes in walls, rocks, the sides of stacks,
among piles of wood or faggots, or the bare roots of trees, and under
the projection at the top of the bank of a river; one has been known
to be placed in an old bonnet fixed up among some peas to frighten
the birds, and another close to a constant thoroughfare. Mr. llcwitson
mentions one built against a clover stack, and formed entirely
of the clover, and so becoming part of the stack itself.
The late Mr. Thompson, of Belfast, records one adapted from a
Swallow's nest of the preceding year, built against a rafter supporting a
floor; another which did not present any appearance of a dome and
was placed in the hole of a wall inside a house, the only entrance
being through a broken pane of the window; and another constructed
in a bunch of herbs hung up to a beam against the top of an outhouse,
almost the entire nest being formed of the herbs, and the whole bunch
very little larger than the nest itself. The door of this house was
generally kept locked, the only mode of entrance at such times being
beneath it, where there was barely room for the birds to pass through;
—in all these instances the broods were reared in safety. He also
mentions the circumstance of a Wren having been detected in the act
of purloining materials from a Thrush's nest, which was built in a
bush adjoining its own tenement, then in course of erection, the thefts
being committed during the temporary absence of the owner in search of
food for its young. Mr. R. Davis, Jun., of Clonmel, also communicated
to him the curious fact of a family of young Wrens, which, having
left their own nest, and being probably in want of shelter, took possession
of that of a Spotted Flycatcher, having apparently broken or thrown
out all the eggs but one. Other situations for nests are the tops of
honeysuckle and raspberry bushes, in the latter case the nest being
made of the leaves of the t r e e ; in fir trees, treUis-work, granaries,