1883] The Wren of St. Kilda. 303 



sanction, to alter and shorten a few sentences, as I fear the report is 

 rather a long one to print in full. 



Please to tell me what is the proper title and reference to Dr. Mar- 

 shall's paper on Rathlin, for it is not in the Royal Irish Academy, and 

 the short abstract in British Association Report for 1835 contains no 



plants So please say where you read it ? Another request I 



have to make is for one page or so of analysis of the Rathlin Flora, 

 You have given no summary, such as we always have been accustomed 

 to, and which would give a finish to your preface. So I want you to let 

 me have just a short account of the 



Scottish Type English Type Atlantic Type 



and otherwise most remarkable plants of Rathlin, of which I suppose 

 the best (Eriocaulon) is now to be struck off. A list of all the species 

 belonging to each type, and the mention of any rarissimcs is very much 

 wanted, and will, I hope, not give you too much trouble. But please 

 let me have this page, and the other alterations and additions to your 

 appendix, in time for the December meeting of R.I. A. 



"What of the hare in Rathlin r" asks the postscript to 

 another letter : the absence of the frog from that outlying 

 fragment of Ireland lending an additional interest to its 

 limited fauna. 



But a remoter island which one of his friends visited 

 this summer possessed a fauna whose interest was of no 

 negative kind. Mr. Barrington, in June, made an expedi- 

 tion to explore St. Kilda's, and had explicit instructions 

 from Mr. More to secure and bring back with him a speci- 

 men of its Wren. The St. Kilda's Wren, as a " species," was 

 still unknown to science ; but Professor Newton and Mr. 

 More had long entertained the suspicion that the Wren 

 which as early as 1698 had been noticed there might 

 resemble the Faroese form (Troglodytes boreal is) rather 

 than the common Wren of Britain. Thus Mr. Barrington's 

 expedition was partly botanical, partly ornithological. Its 

 success, however, was confined to the former field. He got 

 120 species of plants, but no Wren : though (as he after- 

 wards mentioned in the "Zoologist") "my anxiety to 

 procure one could not be disguised, and, as I passed the 

 houses daily, ' Dra-an-dhoun/ the St. Kilda name for the 

 Wren, was frequently heard in the remarks of the natives, 

 who I began to fear had given me that nickname." This 

 last suspicion was fully confirmed a few years later, when 

 Professor Newton and a party of naturalists, visiting St. 



