I050 WOOD-PIE— WREN 



WOOD-PIE, WOOD-SPEIGHT and WOODWALL (see Wood- 

 pecker, page 1045) ; WOOD-PIGEON (see Ring-DovE, page 162). 



WOOD-SWALLOW, the name in Australia for birds of the genus 

 Artamus, the systematic position and true affinities of which must be 

 regarded as undetermined. Some writers place it in a Family of its 

 own, Artamidx, others refer it as a subfamily Artaminse to Laniidx 

 (Shrike), while again some see in it a relationship to the Orioles, 

 and others to the STARLINGS. The species of Artamus, and 17 are 

 recognized by Dr. Sharpe {Cat. B. Br. xvii. pp. 2-21), range from 

 India through most of the intervening countries and islands to 

 Australia, and have many of the habits and to some extent the 

 appearance of Swallows (not that there seems to be any affinity 

 between the groups), passing much of their time on the wing, and 

 taking insects as they fly. Two species, A.fuscus and A. leucorhynchus 

 or leucogaster occur in India, the former reaching to the Philippines 

 and Hainan, the latter from the Andamans to Queensland, and eight 

 others are found in Australia, while one is peculiar to the Fijis. 

 They are plain-looking birds, mostly of a slate-colour with more or 

 less white beneath. Some forms from Madagascar, as Artamia, 

 OrioUa and others, as well as the curious Pseudochelidon from 

 Western Africa, have been referred to the group, but it may be 

 questioned whether they have anything to do with it. By Anglo- 

 Indian ornithologists these birds are generally called Swallow- 

 Shrikes. 



WRANNOCK, WRANNY, Orcadian and Cornish, for the 



WREN (A.-S. JVrsenna and JVrenne, Icel. Eindill), the inquisitive 

 and familiar little brown bird — with its short tail, cocked on high — 

 that braves the winter of the British Islands and even that of the 

 European continent, and, except in the hardest of frosts, will daily 

 sing its spirit-stirring strain. ^ It is the Motacilla or Sylvia troglo- 



tongue. For a long while the subject was not pursued by any other investigator, 

 but lately an excellent though too brief treatise on the subject by Mr. Lucas has 

 been printed by the Agricultural Department of the Government of the United 

 States, together with a valuable preliminary Report by Mr. Beal on the food of 

 Woodpeckers (Washington : 1895), the result of whose investigations is much 

 against the popular view of the alleged mischief done by these birds. It may be 

 mentioned that some limited researches on the ptcrylosis, conducted by Kessler 

 {Bull. Soc. Nat. Muscou, xvi. p. 285), in addition to those of Nitzsch, indicate 

 that as being also a promising line of enquiry, though one that has scarcely been 

 attempted by other workers. 



^ The interest taken in this bird throughout all European countries is scarcely 

 exceeded by that taken in any other, and, though in Britain comparatively few 

 vernacular names have been applied to it, two of them— "Jenny" or "Kitty- 

 Wren" — are terms of endearment. M. Rollaud records no fewer than 139 

 local names for it in France ; and Italy, Germany and other lands are only less 

 prolific. Many of these carry on the old belief that the Wr^n was the King 



