LONDON BIRDS 23 



the side of the Protestants, and once, ' by dancing and 

 pecking on the drums as the enemy approached/ saved 

 the lives of a party who would otherwise certainly have 

 been surprised sleeping, and cut to pieces 'by the 

 Popish Irish.' 



' For this reason/ says Aubrey, who tells the tale in 

 his Miscellanies, 'the wild Irish mortally hate these 

 birds, to this day calling them Devil's Servants, and 

 killing them whenever they catch them/ 



The sympathy of the Lapwings seems to have been 

 as strongly on the other side. They were for the High 

 Church party, and made themselves hated for genera- 

 tions in the lowlands of Scotland as much as were the 

 Wrens in Ireland, by disturbing the devotions of the 

 Covenanters, and meanly betraying them again and 

 again to the Duke of York and Commissioner Middle- 

 ton's men, by shrieking on every possible occasion over 

 the lonely meeting-places on the hillsides. 



But there is a grievance against the Wrens of a date 

 much earlier than the times of the Merry Monarch. 

 The first Christian martyr was on the point of escap- 

 ing when a Wren whether maliciously or by an un- 

 lucky accident is not recorded began to sing, and woke 

 one of the soldiers who formed his guard. It has 

 been the fashion from very early times in Ireland, 

 in Wales, and in many parts of England, to avenge 

 the stoning of St. Stephen by stoning on his day, 

 the 26th December, the poor little descendants of the 

 birds who contributed to his murder. 



The Irish 'Wren boys' and Manx fishermen, when 



