This year I have seen wrens' nests in three different kinds of
places--one built in the angle of a doorway, one under a bank, and a
third near the top of a raspberry bush; this last was so large that
when our gardener first saw it, he thought it was a swarm of bees. It
seems a pleasure to this active bird to build; he will begin to build
several nests sometimes before he completes one for Jenny Wren to lay
her eggs and make her nursery. Think how busy both he and Jenny are
when the sixteen young ones come out of their shells--little helpless
gaping things wanting feeding in their turns the livelong summer day!
What hundreds and thousands of small insects they devour! they catch
flies with good-sized wings. I have seen a parent wren with its beak
so full that the wings stood out at each side like the whiskers of a
cat.
Once in America in the month of June, a mower hung up his coat under a
shed near a barn: two or three days passed before he had occasion to
put it on again. Thrusting his arm up the sleeve he found it
completely filled with something, and on pulling out the mass he found
it to be the nest of a wren completely finished and lined with
feathers. What a pity that all the labor of the little pair had been
in vain!
Great was the distress of the birds, who vehemently and angrily
scolded him for destroying their house; happily it was an empty one,
without either eggs or young birds.
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