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The Woodland Apartment

The woodland apartment was accidentally discovered because of a feud existing between two of the families residing therein. One bright June morning I started on one of my frequent camera-hunting expeditions, my objective point being the home of a pair of Wood Thrushes that had kindly placed their nest in a very favorable position in some alders overhanging a beautiful brook. I was forcing my way slowly through a tangled mass of brakes and briers when, a short distance away, I heard the clear, ringing, rollicking song of a House Wren. It was the same wrensong with which I was familiar, full of those bubbling, gurgling tones, but it stopped abruptly in the middle. In a few moments it sounded again and again the song was Figs. 210-211. The wren would alight on the stump and commence to sing; Downy would promptly drive him off. Opening made to show the eggs. terminated in the same way. "Well," thought I, " that is strange! What can be troubling the little fellow. I surely must look into this".

Just beyond the fringe of the woods was a fallen apple tree, its trunk lying prone upon the ground but with several Figs. 213, 214, 215. SOME VIEWS AT THE NEST HOLE. gaunt grayed branches pointing upward. On the tip of one of these was Sir Wren. At the very moment that I sighted him, he lifted his head, swelled his throat and the liquid notes just trickled through his vibrating mandibles; almost at the same instant a gleam of black and white flashed through the air and he dodged just in time to escape the savage rush of a Downy Woodpecker. Alighting on another stump, the wren again burst into song, only to be pursued by the Downy as before.