WREN. 46 1 



sion of that great Order. In the arrangement of their 

 feathers, in the form of their sternal apparatus, of their vocal 

 muscles and of their palatal bones, and in all that pertains to 

 their mode of reproduction, the true Wrens do not differ from 

 other members of that section of the Order to which the 

 name Oscines has often been applied, and were it not for 

 some small though well-marked peculiarities, the genus 

 Troglodytes, first proposed by Vieillot for the true Wrens, 

 might still be kept in the family Sylvlidce. Few modern 

 ornithologists of repute hesitate about restoring these birds to 

 the neighbourhood of the Warblers, and the relationship of 

 the two groups would possibly be thought still more intimate 

 did not there exist in the New World a multitude of birds 

 closely akin to Troglodytes, but leading as it were to many 

 different forms, and only allied to the Sylviidce through the 

 species of Troglodytes which, inhabiting the northern parts of 

 both hemispheres, are most familiar to us. Hence the dis- 

 tinct family Troglodytidce, now adopted here, has of late years 

 obtained a very general recognition, and, as families go among 

 the Passeres, its claims can be very fairly substantiated. 



Among our birds there is scarcely one that is better known, 

 or more secure by privilege, than the Wren ; frequenting as 

 it does gardens close to our houses, and occasionally taking 

 shelter in out-buildings, its confidence, like that of the Red- 

 breast (with which in so many an adage it is coupled), seems 

 to have induced and insured its protection. Trusting in this 

 it often presents itself boldly before us, conspicuous for its 

 pert postures its cocked tail and its clicking notes ; but, 

 when alarmed, it creeps mouse-like from our sight through 

 hedges and underwood, occasionally flitting for a short dis- 

 tance, and again disappearing from view. The cock sings dur- 

 ing a great part of the year with a shrill and lively strain, and 

 sometimes even 



" When icicles hang dripping from the rock, 

 Pipes his pei'ennial lay;" 



enduring a frosty winter's night by uniting and roosting in 

 company in some sheltered hole of a wall or under a thatched 



