WREN. 505 
. TROGLODYTES PARVULUS. 
WREN. 
(Puate 11.) 
Ficedula regulus, Briss, Orn. iii. p. 425 (1760). 
Motacilla troglodytes, Zinn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 337 (1766). 
Sylvia troglodytes (Linn.) Scop. Ann. I. Hist. Nat. p. 160 (1769). 
Troglodytes parvulus, Koch, Syst. baier. Zool. p- 161 (1816); et auctorum pluri- 
morum—Nawmann, Gray, Cabanis, Lindermayer, Degland, Gerbe, Doderlein, 
Salvadori, Newton, Dresser, &c. 
Troglodytes europeeus, Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. §c. Brit. Mus. p. 25 (1816). 
Troglodytes punctatus, Bore, Isis, 1822, p. 551. 
_ Troglodytes regulus (Briss.), Meyer, Taschenb. p. 96 (1822). 
Troglodytes vulgaris, Flem. Brit. An. p. 73 (1828). 
Anorthura communis, Rennie, Mont. Orn. Dict. 2nd ed. p. 570 (1831). 
Troglodytes communis (Rennie), Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1834, p. 51. 
Anorthura troglodytes (Zinn.), Macg. Brit. B. iii. p. 15, fig. 188 (1840). 
Troglodytes troglodytes (Linn.), Schlegel, Rev. Crit. p. xliv (1844). 
The Common Wren is generally distributed throughout the British 
Islands, even in the wildest and most desolate districts. It is a common 
bird in the most secluded of the Outer Hebrides; and even on such bare 
islets as the Bass and Ailsa Craig its lively song may be heard from the 
heather and the scanty brushwood. It ranges as far north as the Orkneys 
and the Shetlands, where a few breed, and is generally distributed in the 
Channel Islands. 
Ornithologists have treated the Wren and its varieties even more capri- » 
ciously than they have treated the Creeper. Sharpe, though sufficiently 
far in advance of his fellow ornithologists to recognize varieties under the 
name of subspecies, most unaccountably does not do so in the case of the 
Wren, but actually subdivides it into nine full species. These are nothing 
but climatic races. The Wren is an inhabitant of both hemispheres; and 
-during the warm period which followed the Glacial epoch it was probably 
circumpolar ; now it isnot found anywhere so far north as the Arctic circle. 
Even in Scandinavia, under the influence of the Gulf-stream, it has never 
been recorded from any locality north of lat. 66°. It is rare at Archangel, 
in lat. 68°. In Siberia it has not been found north of lat. 54°, and in 
America not north of lat. 56°. Its southern range appears to be bounded 
by the Atlas mountains in North Africa, by Central Persia, the Himalayas, 
and Japan in Asia, and by the plateaux of Southern Mexico in America. 
Distributed over such a large range of country, it meets with various 
climates, and varies somewhat in colour accordingly. 
Troglodytes parvulus, var. nipalensis, 1s found in the Himalayas and the 
