1 78 CERTHIAD M. 



The late Mr. T. F. Neligan, of Tralee, communicated the 

 following note upon this subject in 1837. To hunt the 

 Wren is a favourite pastime of the peasantry of Kerry on 

 Christmas day. This they do, each using two sticks, one 

 to beat the bushes, the other to fling at the bird. It was 

 the boast of an old man, who lately died at the age of one 

 hundred, that he had hunted the Wren for the last eighty 

 years on Christmas day. On St. Stephen's day the chil- 

 dren exhibit the slaughtered birds on an ivy-bush decked 

 with ribbons of various colours, and carry them about, 

 singing the well-known song, commencing 



" The Wren, the Wren, the king of all birds," &c. 



and thus collect money to " bury the Wren." Mr. R. Ball 

 informs me that this persecution of the bird in the south is 

 falling into disuse, like other superstitious ceremonies. In 

 Dr. William H. Drummond's Rights of Animals the cruelty 

 practised towards the Wren in the south of Ireland (for in 

 the north the practice is quite unknown) is dwelt upon, and 

 a tradition narrated, attributing its origin to political mo- 

 tives. In the first number of Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall's 

 Ireland, a very full and well-told account of the "hunting 

 of the Wren" appears. The legend there given as current 

 among the peasantry, is not, however, confined to them, for 

 Mr. Macgillivray, in his British Birds, without referring to 

 the Irish fable, relates the very same as told by the inha- 

 bitants of the Hebrides, and a detailed account of the Wren 

 being called a Kingbird over a considerable part of the 

 European continent will be found in one of the volumes 

 of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, entitled the 

 Habits of Birds, page 49. 



The beak is rather shorter than the head, slender, slightly 

 curved, and pointed ; the upper mandible dark brown, the 

 under mandible pale wood brown ; the irides hazel ; over 



