. Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 141 



from the fact of its having been collected at the Moluccas, 

 there is little doubt but that it was procured somewhere about 

 that locality. 



I remain. Gentlemen, yours respectfully, 



LovELL Reeve. 



8 King William Street, Strand, March 5, 1842. 



Representations of the well-known Carinaria Mediterra- 

 nea are also given in the Plate, in order to exhibit the two 

 species in comparison with each other. 



Plate II. F'ig.\,2. Carinaria Medlterranea. 

 Fig. 3, 4, and 5. Carinaria gracilis. 



XXI. — The Birds of Ireland. By Wm. Thompson, Esq., 

 Vice-Pres. Nat. Hist. Society of Belfast. 



[Continued from vol. viii. p. 502.] 



No. 11.: — Family Certhiadce {continued). 



The Common Wren, TroyJodytes Europceus, Selby, prevails 

 throughout the island ; and though chiefly known as an in- 

 habitant of gardens, plantations and farm-yards, is found in 

 summer and autumn far distant from such locahties, in the 

 wild heathy tracts both of the lowlands and mountain-tops. 

 In similar places it has been obsened by a sporting friend in 

 a fine grouse district in Inverness-shire, where the vicinitv 

 even of the dwelling-house is unfrequented either by the robin 

 or sparrow. 



The nest is generally composed of moss, and placed in hedges, and 

 in trees and shrubs of various Iduds. Warmer sites are not unfre- 

 quently selected ; thus, once in a corn-stack, and four times within 

 houses at our country place, nests of the wren were observed : 

 of these, one was placed on the wall-top, just under the roof of a 

 coach-house : — in the second instance, a swallow's nest of the pre- 

 ceding year (built inside a shed and against a rafter supporting a 

 floor) was taken possession of, and fitted up with moss, of which a 

 considerable quantity was introduced, though no attempt at a dome 

 was made : for a proper construction of the kind there would not 

 have been sufficient room : — the third, likewise, did not present any 

 appearance of a dome ; it was built in a hole in a wall inside a house, 

 and the only entrance was through the broken pane of a window : — • 

 the fourth was constructed in a bunch of herbs hung up to a beam 

 across the top of the garden house for the purpose of being dried ; 

 almost the entire of the nest was formed of the herbs, and the bunch 

 altogether was very little larger than the nest itself; the door of this 

 house was generally kept locked, at which time the only mode of 

 entrance was beneath the door, where there was barely room for the 

 birds to pass through : — in all these instances the broods were reared 



