Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol 3. No 6, June 1898. Various

South.

      The home of a Wren, a few miles from Petersburg, Va., furnishes the strangest case in the matter of queer habitations yet discovered. This country is the site of one of the most dramatic epochs of the civil war, and frequently the bones of unburied soldiers are picked up. Recently a rusty old skull was found in which one of these Wrens chose a shelter. The skull, when found, was hidden in a patch of shrubbery. The interior of the one-time pate was carefully cleaned out, and nestled in the basin of the bony structure was the birth-place of many a baby Wren. The skull made a perfect domicile. A bullet hole in the rear formed a window. An eyeless socket was the exit and entrance to the grim home. It is easy to imagine that many a family feud had its origin in the desire of others to possess so secure a home.

      "I have myself," says A. W. Anthony, of San Diego, Cal., "watched Cactus Wrens in New Mexico carrying grass and thickening the walls of their old nests in October, for winter use, and have found them hidden in their nests during a snowstorm in November. But there is another trait in bird nature that I have seen very little of in print – that of building nests before or after the proper season, seemingly for the sole purpose of practice or pastime, the out-cropping of an instinct that prompts ambitious birds to build out of season even though they know that their work will be lost."

      BRÜNNICH'S MURRE

      THIS species, which inhabits the coasts and islands of the north Atlantic and eastern Arctic ocean, and the Atlantic coast south to New Jersey, has the same general habits as the common Murre, which, like all the Auks, Murres and, Puffins, is eminently gregarious, especially in the breeding season. Davie says that tens of thousands of these birds congregate to make their nests on the rocky islands, laying single eggs near one another on the shelves of the cliffs. The birds sit side by side, and although crowded together never make the least attempt to quarrel. Clouds of birds may be seen circling in the air over some huge, rugged bastion, "forming a picture which would seem to belong to the imaginary rather than the realistic." They utter a syllable which sounds exactly like murre. The eggs are so numerous as to have commercial value, and they are noted for their great variation in markings and ground color. On the Farallones islands, where the eggs were until recently collected for market purposes, the Murres nest chiefly in colonies, the largest rookery covering a hillside and surrounding cliffs at West End, and being known as the Great Rookery. To observe the egg-gatherers, says an eye-witness, is most interesting. "As an egger climbs his familiar trail toward the birds a commotion becomes apparent among the Murres. They jostle their neighbors about the uneven rocks and now and then with open bills utter a vain protest and crowd as far as possible from the intruder without deserting their eggs. But they do not stay his progress and soon a pair, then a group, and finally, as the fright spreads, the whole vast rookery take wing toward the ocean. In the distance, perhaps, we see, suspended over a cliff by a slender rope, an egger gathering the eggs from along the narrow shelves of rock, seeming indifferent to the danger of the work." All this is now changed, the authorities having intervened to prevent the wholesale destruction of the eggs. The Western Gull, however, is another enemy of the Murre (the California species;) it carries off and devours both eggs and young. Mr. Bryant says the Gull picks up a Murre's egg bodily and carries it away in his capacious mouth, but does not stick his bill into it to get hold, as is stated by some writers, whose observations must have referred to the eggs already broken by the Gulls or eggers.

      The eggs of Brunnich's Murre cannot be distinguished from those of the common species. They show a wonderful diversity of color, varying from white to bluish or dark emerald-green. Occasionally unmarked specimens are found, but they are usually handsomely spotted, blotched, and lined in patterns of lilac, brown, and black over the surface.

      THE CANADA GOOSE

      Just a common Wild Goose of North America. In the spring and fall you will see great flocks of us flying overhead, an old Gander in the lead, crying honk, honk as loud as he can. Our nests are only simple hollows in the sand, on the shores of lakes and rivers, around which are placed a few sticks and twigs, the five eggs laid on a layer of gray down.

      "You're a Goose."

      That's a polite way some people have of calling another stupid, but there are Geese and Geese as well as men and men. I am going to tell you about one Goose that dearly loved her master, and considering the way he treated her you may conclude she was a stupid Goose after all.

      Well, this particular Goose took such a fancy to her owner that she would follow him about like a dog, even to the village, where she would wait outside the barber's or other shop which he might enter.

      People noticed this, and instead of calling the farmer by his proper name began to speak of him as "Mr. Goosey." This angered the man and he ordered the poor loving Goose to be locked up in the poultry-yard. Shortly after he went to an adjoining town to attend a meeting; in the midst of the business he felt something warm and soft rubbing against his legs; he looked down and there stood his Goose, with protruding neck and quivering wings, gazing up at him with pleasure and fondness unutterable.