nest; out of these openings the bird puts here head, looking for any threads that may be hanging about, these she takes in her bill and draws to the inside of the nest to be immediately thrust out at another place. On several occasions the male bird went into the nest while the female was gathering nesting material. When she would return he would just pop out through the bottom of it. I was afraid he was damaging the nest and would make a hole in the bottom that could not be repaired; but as the weaving progressed the hole grew smaller and smaller, and in due time the nest was completed. It proved to be an interesting attraction to my friends and neighbors, and a source of great pleasure to myself. While the male oriole does not help build the nest, he is always on guard to protect it, which he does against all comers, for he is a good fighter, fast and fearless. He is also a model husband and father. This pair of orioles had good success with their family affairs. The young left the nest on June 17th, just thirty-four days from the day on which the nest was started.

THE HOUSE WREN.

His

This little creature is a favorite with all who know him. manners, his song and his food habits are above reproach. He is an industrious, confiding, happy little tenant. Professor Beal says: "The house wren is entirely beneficial. Pratically, he may be said. to live upon animal food alone, for an examination of fifty-two stomachs showed that ninety-eight per cent. of the contents was made up of insects or their allies, and only two per cent. was vegetable food, including bits of grass and similar matter, evidently taken by accident with the insects. Half of this food consisted of grasshoppers and beetles, the remainder of caterpillars, bugs and spiders. As the house wren is a prolific breeder, frequently rearing in a season from twelve to sixteen young, 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 or rail of the fence and every cranny in the wall for insects or spiders."

He sings almost continually through the long nesting season from early morning until late at night, and all he asks in return

for his beneficial and professional services is that we provide him with a suitable place where he can build his nest and rear his family in safety. Even now, outside my window, there is waging a battle of song between three male wrens, each trying to outdo the other. The energy and swiftness with which these song missiles are hurled at each other is truly amazing. Jenny Wren never sings but she is an adept at scolding. Tommy Wren does all the singing and he can scold, too, and equally as well as Jenny. Their scolding, or alarm note, is quite characteristic, and is readily given on the approach of a cat, dog or other supposed enemy.

The wren is not particular about his nesting place, but will occupy any cavity his fancy may select. While we say he is not particular about his nesting place, we may say that he is peculiar. I have known them to build in the spout of a cistern pump; in an old sprinkling can that had been left hanging in a tree; in a clothespin bag that was hanging on the clothes line; another pair of wrens went into the house, through an open window, and was determined to build a nest in a handbag that was hanging on a chair; another pair built their nest on the window sill behind the shutters; but to me, the most peculiar nesting place of all was in a paper bag, partly filled with nails, that had been left on the sill of an old wagon shed.

Compared to its size, the wren requires a large house. He seems to fancy a house about six inches square on the inside, and about six inches high, with the entrance hole five inches from the bottom. The entrance hole should be exactly the size of a silver twenty-five cent piece. He slips through this hole with ease, while it completely baffles the bluebird and the English sparrow. Sometimes they build in my bluebird houses. When they do this, I take a piece of cigar box or shingle, make a hole in it the regulation size, and tack it over the entrance hole of the bluebird box. They never have objected to this, and it gives them such protection that they invariably rear their family in safety. The nature of the wrens' nesting material is such that a perch is very convenient. Wrens rear two and sometimes three broods in a season, therefore you must provide extra boxes. While Jenny Wren is brooding, Tommy is busily engaged in building another nest. When the first brood leaves the nest, Tommy takes charge of it and Jenny im

mediately turns her attention to the new nest. In fact, I have often seen Jenny working at her new home before her first brood had left the nest.

Dipper gourds, hollowed out, make very attractive nesting places for wrens. They will utilize old tin cans of any sort, oil cans, coffee pots, tea kettles, flower pots, and sprinkling cans afford shelter and supply nesting places. The gourds may be hung about the veranda, under eaves and projecting roofs, while the other receptacles may be placed in trees, on fence posts or erected on a pole from five to ten feet above the ground.

THE PURPLE MARTIN AND ITS SUMMER RESIDENCE. After an intimate acquaintance with this cheerful, sociable bird, I have learned to love it. It is indeed unfortunate that this bird is so little known and approved in Indiana, which is favorably suited for its colonization. The purple martin belongs to the swallow family, and is the largest member of that family. It is about eight inches long, but its great spread of wings, from fifteen to sixteen inches, makes it look very much larger. The adult male is a lustrous blue black, the wings and tail being slightly duller. The adult female and the young of both sexes are grayish brown, glossed with steel blue on upper parts, while beneath they are dark gray, shading into whitish on the belly. During the summer the purple martin is distributed over most of temperate North America east of the Rockies. In autumn it migrates to the tropics, where it spends the winter. The purple martin builds its nest and rears its young in houses put up for it about our homes. It likes companynesting in colonies-and large, many roomed houses are often filled with them.

William Dutcher says: "The red man, a true lover of nature, invited the cheerful martin to remain about his tepee by erecting a pole on which he hung a hollow gourd for a nesting place. The white successor of the aborigine has adopted his red brother's bird friend, now providing a far more elaborate home for its use. Is there anything in the bird world that represents home life and community of interests as well as a colony of martins? Content