292 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



Ireland. Mention of the bird is first made in the classical 

 work of Martin, who visited St Kilda in June 1697 ; and it 

 next came under the notice of Macaulay, who was there 

 in 1758. The latter of these visitors was much impressed 

 by the presence of the bird, and this led him to remark : 

 " How these little birds . . . could have flown thither, or 

 whether they went accidentally in boats, I leave to be 

 determined." 



The first to make known its peculiarities was the late 

 Henry Seebohm, who in 1884 described {Zoologist^ 1884, 

 p. 333) the St Kilda Wren, from specimens obtained in 

 June of that year, as a new species, under the name of 

 Troglodytes hirtensis, Hirta being the name of the main 

 island of the group. The majority of the ornithologists 

 of the present day regard it, however, as a race of the 

 Common Wren, and it rejoices in the trinomial name of 

 T^'oglodytes troglodytes Jurtensis. Whether or not it should 

 be regarded as a distinct species is a matter of opinion 

 rather than of rules. The up-to-date mammalogists have 

 awarded full specific rank to the peculiar Field Mouse and 

 House Mouse of St Kilda, which recently formed the subject 

 of a communication to the pages of this magazine {^Scot. 

 Nat., 1914, pp. 124-8). That the Wren and the mice are on 

 an equality as regards their systematic status is, I think, 

 undeniable ; and this want of uniformity in their treatment 

 demonstrates that there is a fundamental difference in the 

 standard upon which our ornithologists and mammalogists 

 base their findings as to what constitutes a species, and 

 what a race — an unfortunate diversity which in the interests 

 of science and consistency should not exist. 



The descriptions of the St Kilda Wren by Seebohm and 

 others have all, so far as the writer is aware, been based 

 upon specimens in the well-worn plumage (at least nine 

 months old) of summer. This fact led Seebohm in 1885 

 to remark in his British Birds (vol. iii., p. 665) that " the 

 young in first plumage and adults after the autumn moult 

 are unknown." So also are the young in their first autumn 

 dress. To furnish these desiderata towards the knowledge 

 of these plumages is the main object of the present contribu- 



