The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-02
WREN DISCIPLINE.

How the Father Bird Forced His Family Into the World.
 Hidden in the grass, I tried to solve the secret of the fathers petulant ac- tions. Each time the patient mother
 returned he grew more restless and violent in his language. Soon I saw his wife whirl joyously by with an un- usually large white grub-surely d
 prize for any bird. But alas! for all her proWess her spouse darted at her as if in madness, while she, trembling in ter TOT, retreated down the limb and through the bushes. For a few nlon- ents it seemed as if the wren household was to be wrecked. I was tempted to take the mothers part against such cruel treatment as she quivered through the fern on fiuttering wing toward me, but at that moment, as if thoroughly
 subdued, she yielded up the bug to the father. This was the bone of conten- Itention. A domestic battle had been fought and he had won. The scolding ceased. Both seemed satisfied. Mount ling to the tree top. the little mother poured forth such a flood of sweet song las rarely strikes human ear From Ithat moment she seemed a different wren, released from all care and worry Her entire time was spent in search for bugs. Each return was heralded by Ithe high-sounding trill from the tree top, and her husband whirled out of the tangled vines to take the morsel she lcarried.
 But what of his actions He had either gone crazy or he was most |selfish little tyrant, for he flew about the alder stump, calling now in a softer tone to his children within, and finally swallowed the grub himself. Two or three times he did this until was so |disgusted I could hardly endure. If he were hungry, why could he not skir- mish for his own bugs?
 When I was chiding him for his in famous action, the mother appeared with large moth, which he readily took. Among the alder limbs the father flew, and finally up to the nesthole. out of which was issuing such a series of hungry screams as no parents with the least bit of devotion could resist. Hard- fly could I believe my eyes, for the lit tie knave just went to the door, where leach hungry nesting could get a good view of the morsel, then as if scolding the little ones for being so noisy and hungry, he hoped back down the tree into the bushes.
 This was indeed cause for a family revolt The brown nestling nearest the ldocr grew so bold with hunger that he forgot his fear and plunged headlong down. catching in the branches below where the father perched. And the precocious youngster got the large moth as q reward for his bravery. Not till then did it dawn upon me that there was reason for the fathers Iqueer actions. The wrenlets were old enough to leave the nest. Outside in Ithe warm sunshine they could be taught the ways of woodcraft. In half Ian hour, one after another the little wrens had been persuaded, even com Ipelled, to leave the narrow confines of ithe nest and launch out into the big world.
 What task the father had brought lupon himself! Surely the old woman in the shoe had a more trying time. The ifretfu father darted away to punish lone of the wrenlets for not remaining |quiet; he scurried here to scold another for wandering too far, or whirled away to whip a third for not keeping low in the underbrush, away from the hawks lwatchful eyes.-William Lowell Finley in the St. Nicholas.