“When we were half-way down the mountain we passed a miner’s cabin.  He was at home, and we sat down on a bench by the door to rest.  Thinking he might know about the nest of the Rock Wren,—­for an old miner knows a great many things he never thinks of making a book about,—­I asked him if there were any Wrens around there.

“’Wall, I should smile, stranger!  Lots on ’em—­more’n one kind, too—­but mostly not the reg’lar kind they have where you tenderfoots live—­bigger, and pickeder in front, and make more fuss.  When they fust come, ’long about May, or nigh onter June, they act kinder shy like, but they get uster to yer, soon’s they find nobody ain’t goin’ to bother with ’em, and stay around altogether, mostly in the rocks.  Last y’ar there was two on ’em come nigh chinking up this shebang with trash they hauled in for a nest, afore they got it fixed to suit ’em, and had it chuck full o’ speckled eggs.  Then one of these yere blamed pack-rats tore it all up, and they had to start in to hauling more trash.’

“So you see, children, this miner knew a Rock Wren—­do you know a Jenny Wren?”

The Rock Wren

Length nearly six inches.

Back gray, with fine black-and-white dots.

Under parts no particular color.

Some of the tail-feathers with black bars and cinnamon-brown tips.

A Citizen of the United States from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific
Ocean.

A Ground Gleaner

THE HOUSE WREN

“We all know Jenny Wren!” cried the children.  “The Farm is full of Jennies and Johnnies!”

“They build in bird-boxes,” said Dodo.

“And in old tin cans, and water pots, and anything they find,” said Rap.

“And Jenny does most of the work; if the can is very large she fills it full of sticks until there is only a cosy little corner left for the nest, for she is a very neat bird,” said the Doctor, when he could be heard.  “She keeps her house nice and clean, and is very industrious too, making a fresh nest for every new brood, which means a great deal of work, for Wrens often raise three families a season.”

“But Johnny Wren works too, doesn’t he?” asked Nat; “he is always taking home bugs and things, and he sings as if he would split.”

“Wrens live in woodpiles in winter,” said Rap.

The Doctor laughed heartily at the hurry with which the children told their knowledge.

“Everybody has a bowing acquaintance with the House Wren,” he said, “for they are seen everywhere through the United States, those that are citizens of the West being a trifle paler in color and more sharply barred than their easterly brothers, but all having the same habits; even the Rock Wren is as jolly and sociable as his house-loving cousins.

“But the Wren that Rap says lives in the woodpile in the winter is not our House Wren, but another member of the same family—­the smallest of all, called the Winter Wren.