Some Observations on the Carolina Wren in La Salle Parish, Louisiana

AN unusual opportunity was afforded the writer for studying the habits of the Carolina Wren, with especial reference to the care and feeding of the young. From 1920 to 1941 the Yale School of Forestry maintained a tent camp at Urania, Louisiana, from March 15 to June 15. The location was in a second growth mixed loblolly pine and hardwood forest, with an acre of open grassland, and the wren population was numerous, resulting in the nesting of three or four pairs of birds in and around the camp. From the first year on, the wrens were interested in the possibilities provided by the interiors of the tents, and built their nests on shelves, in boxes and even in a pair of pants hung from a hook, but never on the floor. Too often their efforts failed, sometimes through removal of the tents on leaving camp, or by reason of use of the receptacle chosen for the nest. Yet the practice continued for several years, and then gradually ceased altogether. There were just as many wrens about, but they abandoned the unreliable tents and reverted to their former nesting sites in the forest. Of this change of habit or adaptation there is no shadow of doubt. Whether inherited experience, or "acquired characteristics" was responsible, the fact is that after about two generations the wrens learned to avoid the tents, which their natural instincts had originally favored. Before this transition took place, one pair of wrens had built its nest between a table top and a shelf six inches below the top, in a corner within a foot of the chair occupied by the writer. Thus every move by the parent birds, and the crop of young wrens, was under close observation whenever he was in the tent.