CONCLUSION. 



IT will perhaps be thought by some that I have strained a 

 point in order to make things look a little worse than they 

 are. Unfortunately they are really worse than I have made 

 them appear, both with regard to the number of lost species, 

 and to the falling off in the character of the bird population, 

 owing to the rapid decrease of the most attractive forms, and 

 a corresponding increase in those that are least attractive. 

 With regard, to the former point, there is reason to believe 

 that at least four species not included in the list were once 

 summer residents and breeders in Great Britain. These are 

 the gos-hawk, night heron, little bittern, and Baillon's crake. 

 There is a fifth to be mentioned the very small bird perched 

 on the skull of a great bird figured on the cover of this 

 pamphlet. In the little bird the ornithologist will at once 

 recognize the St. Kilda wren ; and when he considers that 

 this small feathered creature is a dweller among the rocks 

 near the sea, and frequently nests in crevices and holes just 

 above high-water mark on the shores of that " habitacle of 

 birdes" which the Great Auk once haunted, he will not 

 regard the drawing as a representation of something purely 

 fanciful. It will be remembered that about nine or ten 

 years ago Mr. Charles Dixon found this wren quite common 

 at St. Kilda, where it was the only small bird resident all the 

 year. It differed from the common wren in its habits, and 

 more powerful song; its paler ground colour and more 

 distinct markings, and in its stouter legs and feet. On 

 account of these distinguishing characters it was described 

 as a new species Troglodytes hirtensis. It is now believed 

 by ornithologists that the St. Kilda wren is not specifically 

 distinct from the wren of the mainland ; that it is a variety, 



