162 Breeding habits of the marsh wrens MASS (Middlesex Co.) 1875 June 26 Clear and cool with E. wind, off after breakfast striking up to the Block is meadows when I searched a long time for marsh wren's nest. Finally found one of C. palustris with 5 fresh eggs. The birds were quite plenty and almost everywhere when I found a & singing I quickly discerned several fols nests. In one place I found 4 within an area of ten yards, Some are built in the top of a tussock others among coarse saw grass or flags all very conspicuous and lined with mud. The nest containing the eggs was suspended between the stalks of some rather fine grasses and lined with fine grass a little down and a few feathers .. It was quite as conspicuous as any of the fols ones, and within ten yards was one of that description. The male begins to scold as soon as you approach any of the nests and I think his mate leaves her eggs at the first alarm as I shot a & in another place, which had evidently been incubating a long time but which flew out of the meadow when his mate signaled my presence and took to a thicket of alders on a hill side. C. mellius was also abundant in the same meadows I shall try again for their nests. The song of C. palustris varies but the most common version is sick sick, a-rick-a-sick-a-sick. In V.M. visited the spot in Waltham when with Bailey I saw a pair of Vires solitariae on the 15th inst. Searching a little while I found it perched from a maple twig 7 ft up and 3 from the trunk of the tree. The & was sitting and out