File:Bird lore (1909) (14569201567).jpg

Identifier: birdlore111909nati (find matches)
Title: Bird lore
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: National Committee of the Audubon Societies of America National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals National Audubon Society
Subjects: Birds Birds Ornithology
Publisher: New York City : Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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IHP: RETURN EROM IHE HUNr before about the House Wrens. The information that follows was new to me,and I give it because part of it may prove to be both new and of interest. In the first )Aa.cc, I was interested in noting the selection of the nesting-boxbv the Wrens. All my cocoanut shells, which were securely suspended by heavywires from the limbs of trees, so as to be cat-proof, were not fancied, and a small-sized, old wooden box, on the top of an eight-foot trellis, was chosen. The feeding of my young Wrens was done entirely by the female, who drovethe unwilling male from the nesting-site the second or third day after the youngwere hatched. Several times during the first two days following incubation, themale ajjiieared at the box with food for his offspring. However, these effortswere not acceptable to her ladyship, who severely scolded her consort each timehe thus appeared. For a day or two after this, the banished male could be heard
Text Appearing After Image:
202 Bird-Lore singing from a distant tree, and tlien he disappeared entirely frcim the premisesuntil the young were read\- to leave their box, some two weeks later. Two daysbefore the departure of the young from the box, the father returned, and wasseen to carry a horse-hair into the box, though the latter was Idled to overflowingwith five fully fledged young. The day after the young left the nest, the male,singing constantly, remained about the box all day, and spent some time tearingdown the old nest and flinging horse-hair, flnc strijiped bark and small twigsto the ground. These actions indicated that the male, who took no more partin caring for the young after they left the nest than he had done before, possessedthe nest-building instinct at an ineffectual time, and when it was absent in thefemale. Now, if these facts can be taken as a criterion for the actions of otherindividual House Wrens, they may readil)- explain the presence in former years,,of nest-building single males, wh

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