WREN io;i 



dytes of the earlier systematists, and the Troglodytes parvulus, eiiropxus 

 or vulgaris of most later writers.^ Here it hardly needs descrip- 

 tion, and its domed nest, apparently so needlessly large for the 

 size of the bird, is a well-known object, for it is built with 

 uncommon care, and often (though certainly not always) in such 

 a fashion as to assimilate its exterior to its surroundings, and so 

 to escape observation. Very curious, too, is the equally un- 

 accountable fact, that near any occupied nest may generally be 

 found another nest, or more than one, of imperfect construction. 

 The widespread belief concerning these unfinished fabrics is implied 

 by their common name of "cocks' nests," but evidence to that 

 effect is not forthcoming. The breeding-habits of the Wren were 

 most closely studied and accurately reported by Mr. Weir to 

 Macgillivray (Brit. Birds, iii. pp. 23-30) in a way that leads every 

 ornithologist to wish that the same care might be bestowed on 

 other kinds of birds. 



The range of the Wren in Europe ^ is very extensive, though 

 it seems to stop short of the Arctic Circle ; but it occurs in 

 Algeria, Madeira and, according to Bolle, in the Canaries. It also 

 inhabits Palestine. Further to the eastward its limits are difficult 

 to trace, because they inosculate with those of a considerable 

 number of local races or species. As might be expected, the form 

 inhabiting Japan, T. funiigatiis, seems to be justifiably deemed a 

 species. In North America, T. alascensis occurs in the extreme 



of Birds, a belief connected with the fable that on one occasion the fowls of the 

 air in general assembly resolved to choose for their leader that one of them 

 which should mount highest. This the Eagle seemed to do, and all were ready- 

 to accept his rule, when a loud burst of song was heard, and perched upon him 

 was seen the exultant Wren, which unseen and unfelt had been borne aloft by 

 the giant. The curious association of this bird with the Feast of the Three 

 Kings, on which day in South Wales, or, in Ireland and in the south of France, 

 on or about Christmas Day, it was customary for men and boys to "hunt the 

 Wren," addressing it in a song as "the King of Birds," is very remarkable, and 

 has never yet been explained {cf. Yarrell, Br. B. ed. 4, i. pp. 465, 466). 



^ A few, who ignore not only common sense but also the accepted rules of 

 scientific nomenclature, by a mistaken view of Vieillot's intention in establish- 

 ing the genus Troglodytes, reserve that term for some American species — 

 which can hardly be generically separated from the Eiu'opean form, — and have 

 attempted to fix on the latter the generic term Anorthura, which is its strict 

 equivalent, and was proposed by Rennie on grounds that are inadmissible. 



^ Some interest was excited by the discovery, announced by Mr. Seebohm 

 {Zool. 1884, p. 333), that the Wren, for nearly 200 years known to inhabit St. 

 Kilda, differed in hue from that of the other British Islands and of the con- 

 tinent of Europe, and he described it as a distinct species, T. hirtensis. It had 

 for more than 20 years been known that the Wren of the Faroes and Iceland, 

 T. borealis (Fischer, Journ. fur Orn. 18G1, p. 14, pi. i.), deserved separation 

 from the ordinary T. parvulus, by being larger, aud especially by having larger 

 and stouter feet. 



