Length: About 4 inches; the same size as the golden-crowned kinglet.

Male and Female: Similar in appearance to the house wren, but smaller and with a shorter tail; body brown, mostly barred with fine, black lines; light line over the eye; under parts darker than those of the house wren, with a buff wash across throat and breast.

Song: A very beautiful song, unusually loud for so small a bird. Those fortunate enough to hear it are extravagant in their praise. Mr. Eaton calls it the sweetest melody that he and his associates heard in the Adirondacks, excelling even the thrushes.

Habitat: Brush heaps, thickets in woods, along streams, and in wild rocky places.

Range: Breeds from southern Canada to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, and Massachusetts, through the Alleghanies to North Carolina; winters from about its southern breeding limit to Texas and northern Florida.

Eaton says: “During the migration, this little wren is commonly observed about the shrubbery of our lawns, parks, and the edges of woods, when disturbed retreating to the recesses of some brush pile or under the damp edges of the stream bank. A few remain throughout the winter in western and central New York, and it is fairly common as a winter resident in the southeastern portion of the State, but in the principal breeding range of the Adirondacks and Catskills it is only a summer resident.”[36] It is a rather common winter visitor near Washington, and rare in New England.