30 ANORTHURA TROGLODYTES. 



in it a quarter of an hour. From five to six o'clock they fed 

 them fourteen times. The female went into the nest for five 

 minutes. From six to seven o'clock, they fed them ten times ; 

 and from seven to eight, seventeen times. The female went 

 into the nest, and remained a short time. From eight to 

 nine o'clock, they fed them eight times ; and about ten minutes 

 after this, having again fed them, the female went into the 

 nest and remained for the night. From the slender branch of 

 a larch, they supplied with a great variety of flies and insects 

 their young, whose craving appetite seemed never to be satis- 

 fied, no less than 278 times in the course of the day. As the 

 number of insects carried in by them varied, it was impossible 

 to calculate exactly how many were destroyed." 



Young. — The young in their first plumage differ considera- 

 bly from the old birds. The basal margin of the bill, and the 

 lower mandible, are yellow, the upper mandible pale brown ; 

 the feet brownish-yellow. The upper parts are reddish-brown, 

 the head darker ; the wings and tail barred with blackish ; the 

 lower parts pale yellowish -brown, the tips of the feathers darker, 

 the lower tail-coverts slightly barred. The wing-coverts are 

 destitute of the white tips conspicuous in old birds. 



Progress toward Maturity.' — After the first moult, the bill 

 is more dusky, the feet darker ; the upper parts more or less 

 undulated ; as are the abdominal feathers and sides ; but the 

 lower parts are still of a dull greyish-brown colour. 



Remarks. — I have preferred retaining the specific name Tro- 

 glodytes, bestowed by Linnaeus, to converting it into a generic 

 name, because the hiding in caves or holes, like the ancient 

 Troglodytae, is not a character common to all wrens, although 

 it belongs to the present species in a remarkable degree. As 

 a generic name, Anorthura, proposed by Mr Rennie, seems to 

 me not merely unobjectionable but very appropriate. 



