n of a cock-nest; as I
have sometimes found that after remaining in the same unfinished
state for several weeks, they have afterwards been fitted up with
a lining, and bred in.

Mr. Rennie asserts that Montagu is wrong when he says that the
Wren always adapts its materials to its locality. Although it
certainly is not always the case, yet so very generally is it so,
that I think it is not surprising that Montagu made this
assertion.

Thus, if a Wren build in a haystack, the front of the nest is
generally composed of the hay from the stack; if it be built in a
bush by the side of a river, and (which is frequently the case)
below flood mark, it is generally covered on the outside with the
rubbish which has been left there by the flood; and if it build in
a mossy stump, the front of the nest is composed of the dark-
coloured moss which grows there. (May 22, 1832.)

Along with my last letter, I sent some Wrens' nests lined with
feathers, and I could easily have increased them to a dozen of the
same sort, only I did not wish to deprive so many of my little
favourites of their eggs and young. Every day convinces me more
decidedly, that I am right both with regard to the lining of the
Wrens' nests, and as to the cock-nests also. The nests I sent you
will prove the former, and I know of at least twenty instances of
the latter, in nests which I have known of all through the spring,
from April to the present time, which have remained in the same
unfinished state, although they are not forsaken, as I have found
the birds in them, in several instances, when I have examined
them. I found one of these nests on the 10th of April, under a
bank on the side of the river; and I examined it repeatedly
through April and May, and always found it in the same state,
although there was always a pair of Wrens about, and I could find
no other nest; yet I am sure there was another, for in the
beginning of this month (June) there were some young Wrens, which
had evidently only just come out of the nest; and there were only
two or three bushes grew thereabouts, so that it is not probable
they had come from any other quarter, but the bushes were filled
with dead leaves, and other rubbish brought down by the flood.
However, when I heard them, I looked out for another nest, as I
believe (notwithstanding what Montagu says, that there are few
birds, if any, that would produce a second lot of eggs if the
first were unmolested) that most of the small