The Bewick's wren (Thryomanes bewickii) is a wren native to North America. It is the only species placed in the genus Thryomanes. At about long, it is grey-brown above, white below, with a long white eyebrow. While similar in appearance to the Carolina wren, it has a long tail that is tipped in white. The song is loud and melodious, much like the song of other wrens. It lives in thickets, brush piles and hedgerows, open woodlands and scrubby areas, often near streams. It eats insects and spiders, which it gleans from vegetation or finds on the ground. Its historic range was from southern British Columbia, Nebraska, southern Ontario, and southwestern Pennsylvania, Maryland, south to Mexico, Arkansas and the northern Gulf States. However, it is now extremely rare east of the Mississippi River. Taxonomy In 1827 the American ornithologist John James Audubon included an illustration of Bewick's wren under the binomial name Troglodytes bewickii in his The Birds of America. In the companion Ornithological Biography, published four years later, Audubon explained that he had shot the specimen near St. Francisville, Louisiana in 1821 and had chosen the specific epithet bewickii in honour of his friend the engraver Thomas Bewick. Bewick's wren is now the only species placed in the genus Thryomanes that was introduced by the English zoologist Philip Sclater in 1862. The Socorro wren was formerly also placed in Thryomanes, but is now known to be a close relative of the house wren complex, as indicated by biogeography and mtDNA NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 sequence analysis, whereas Thryomanes seems not too distant from the Carolina wren. Subspecies Fifteen subspecies are recognised of which two are now extinct. Subspecies can be distinguished by the small differences in the color of the dorsal feathers but this can be difficult for museum specimens as the colors tend to change after a few years of storage. T. b. calophonus Oberholser, 1898 – southwest Canada and northwest USA T. b. drymoecus Oberholser, 1898 – west Canada. Includes T. b. atrestus. T. b. marinensis Grinnell, 1910 – coastal northwest California T. b. spilurus (Vigors, 1839) – coastal central California † T. b. leucophrys (Anthony, 1895) – Extinct, formerly San Clemente Island, California T. b. charienturus Oberholser, 1898 – southern California and northwest Baja California T. b. cerroensis (Anthony, 1897) – west central Baja California T. b. magdalenensis Huey, 1942 – southwest Baja California † T.