Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/464

428 is also sometimes a low hoai'se and scolding daigh, daigh. Then again on invading the nest, the sound sinks to a plaintive tsh, tship, tsh, tship. In the early part of the breeding season, the male is very lively and musical, and in his best humour he tunes up a tship, tship, tship, a dee, with a pleasantly warbled and reiterated de. At a later period, another male uttered little else than a hoarse and guttural daigh, hardly louder than the croaking of a frog. When approached, they repeatedly descend into the grass, where they spend much of their time, in quest of insects, chiefly crustaceous, which, with moths, constitute their principal food. Here unseen they still sedulously utter their quaint warbling ; and tship, tship, a day, day, day, day, may, for about a month from their arrival, be heard pleasantly echoing on a fine morning, from the borders of every low marsh and wet meadow, provided with tussocks of sedge grass, in which they indispensably dwell, for a time engaged in the cares and gratification of raising and providing for their young.

" The nest of the Short-billed Marsh Wren is made wholly of dry or partly green sedge, bent usually from the top of the grassy tuft in which the fabric is situated. With much ingenuity and labour these simple materials are loosely entwined together into a spherical form, with a small and rather obscure entrance left on the side. A thin lining is sometimes added to the whole, of the linty fibres of the silk-weed, or some other similar material. The eggs, pure white, and destitute of spots, are pro- bably from six to eight. In a nest containing seven eggs, there were three of them larger than the rest, and perfectly fresh, while the four smaller were far advanced towards hatching. From this circumstance we may fairly infer that two different individuals had laid in the same nest, a circumstance more common among wild birds than is generally imagined. This is also the more remarkable, as the male of this species, like many other Wrens, is much employed in making nests, of which not more than one in three or four are ever occupied by the females!

"The summer limits of this species, confounded Avith the ordinary Marsh Wren, are yet unascertained ; and it is singular to remark how near it approaches to another species inhabiting the temperate parts of the southern hemisphere in America, namely the Sylvia platensis, figured and indicated by Buffon. The description, however, of this bird, ob- tained by CoMMERsoN, on the banks of La Plata, is too imperfect for certainty. It was found probably in a marshy situation, as it entered the boat in which he was sailing. The time of arrival and departure of this