THE WREN OF ST KILDA 291 



THE WREN OF ST KILDA: ITS STATUS, 

 PLUMAGES, AND HABITS. 



By Wm. Eagle Clarke. 



The specialisation which, during recent years, has become 

 such a marked feature in all branches of scientific and 

 other work has naturally extended its activities to orni- 

 thology. One of the results of this activity has been the 

 recognition of racial forms among birds — forms which depart 

 more or less from some of the typical characters of the 

 parent species, especially in regard to modifications in 

 plumage. Such peculiarities, moreover, are associated with 

 a definite and more or less circumscribed geographical 

 distribution. To-day in the British Isles alone no less 

 than twenty-five of these endemic races are recognised in 

 the List of British Birds, published under the authority of 

 the British Ornithologists' Union. 



Among these essentially British native birds the Red 

 Grouse and the St Kilda Wren stand prominent, by 

 reason of the marked nature of the differentiation they 

 present in their characteristics as compared with the other 

 members of the genera to which they respectively belong. 

 The former has long been well known to all who are 

 interested in bird-life or in sport. On the other hand, the 

 insignificant Wren is probably the least known of all our 

 birds. That this should be so is due to the remoteness of 

 its habitat, which is entirely confined to a miniature archi- 

 pelago of rocky islets lying far out in the Atlantic ; and 

 to the fewness of its numbers, which are in consonance with 

 the narrow limits of its native haunts. 



Though the presence of a Wren on St Kilda had long 

 been known through the writings of naturalists who from 

 time to time had visited the island, yet the marked 

 peculiarities of the bird were only recognised some thirty 

 years ago as being distinct from the familiar bird of our 

 childhood which inhabits the mainland of Great Britain and 



