Birds of La Plata - v. 1 Author:William Henry Hudson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HOUSE-WREN Troglodytes furvus Warm brown; tail-feathers and outer webs of wing-feathers pencilled with dark wavy lines; beneath pale brown ; length 4.8 inc... more »hes. The common Argentine Wren is to all English residents the " House-Wren," and is considered to be identical with the species familiar to them in their own country. It is a sprightly little bird, of a uniform brown colour and a cheerful melodious voice; a tireless hunter after small spiders and caterpillars in hedges, gardens, and outhouses, where it explores every dark hole and cranny, hopping briskly about with tail erect, and dropping frequent little curtsies; always prompt to scold an intruder with great emphasis; a great hater of cats. It was my belief at one time that the Wren was one of the little birds a cat could never catch; but later on I discovered that this was a mistake. At my home on the pampas we once had a large yellow tomcat exceedingly dexterous in catching small birds; he did not, however, eat them himself, but used to bring them into the house for the other cats. Two or three times a day he would appear with a bird, which he would drop at the door, then utter a loud mew very well understood by the other cats, for they would all fly to the spot in great haste, and the first to arrive would get the bird. At one time I noticed that he brought in a Wren almost every day, and,curious to know how he managed to capture so clever a bird, I watched him. His method was to go out into the grounds frequented by Wrens, and seat himself conspicuously amongst the weeds or bushes ; and then, after the first burst of alarm had subsided amongst the small birds, one or two Wrens would always take on themselves the task of dislodging him, or, at all events, of making his position a very uncomfortable one. The cat...« less