WREN 1051 
dytes of the earlier systematists, and the T’roglodytes parvulus, europaus 
or vulgaris of most later writers.1 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, 7. fumigatus, seems to be justifiably deemed a 
species. In North America, 7. 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). 
1 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 European 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. 
2 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, 7. hirtensis. It had 
for more than 20 years been known that the Wren of the Feroes and Iceland, 
T. borealis (Fischer, Journ. fiir Orn. 1861, p. 14, pl. i.), deserved separation 
from the ordinary 7. parvulus, by being larger, and especially by having larger 
and stouter feet. 
