Another week found the pair building a nest in the cavity of a maple tree near the study window. To the sticks and straws which Mr. Wren had placed therein early in the season, Mrs. Wren added spider webs and cocoons, lining the nest, or furnishing it as she called it, with horsehair and the downiest goose and duck feathers she could procure. "There!" said she, when all was completed and the first egg laid, "Mrs. John can't sneer at our home now. No coarse chicken feathers, or stable straw this time, Mr. Wren. We will use the other apartment you chose for the third brood, for three we are to have this summer as well as Mrs. John. When we go south in November, our family I intend shall be as large as hers." Mr. Wren made no answer, but, possibly being such an uncommonly wise bird, inwardly marveled over that imperious force, that wonderful instinct which made it necessary for them and all the feathered tribe to reproduce their kind. Very carefully, one winter's day, Bridget removed the nest from the tin-pot and wreathing it in ribbons, hung it above her chest of drawers in the the attic. "It do same," said she to the children, who prided themselves upon their knowledge of the looks and habits of the House Wren, "that in sthudoin the birds this summer I do be afther learnin' a lesson I wasn't expectin' meself at all." "A lesson?" said they curiously. "Indade! Its young ye's aire, me darlint's, to be thinkin' of the same, but sure its not meself that'll ever be forgetten the patience, ingenuity, industhry, and conjoogal love of the wee pair. Faith but it was a purty sight. Dumb animals indade! Niver sphake to me of _dumb_ animals, for be St. Patrick, if them two blessed little crathers didn't talk, schold, make love, and sing in a langwidge all their own, then me grandfather's name wasn't Dinnis, and I'm not Bridget O'Flaherty, at all, at all." [THE END.] [Illustration: OLD SQUAW DUCK.] THE OLD SQUAW DUCK. ---- HERE is an instance where the female is the head of the family indeed, for by common consent the name includes the male of this species. It has numerous other names, however, as Old Wife, South-Southerly, Long-tailed Duck, Swallow-tailed Duck, Old Injun (Massachusetts and Connecticut;) Old Molly, Old Billy, Scolder, (New Hampshire and Massachusetts.)