WREN. 505 



TROGLODYTES PARVULUS. 



WREN. 

 (PLATE 11.) 



Ficedula regulus, ris#. Orn. iii. p. 425 (1760). 

 Motacilla troglodytes, Linn. Syst. Xat. i. p. 337 (1766). 



ia troglodyte? (Linn.) Scop. Ann. I. Hi?t. Xat. p. 160 (1769). 

 Troglodytes parvulus. Koch, Syst. baier. Zool. p. 161 (1816) ; et auctorum pluri- 



morom Naumann, Gray, Cabanis, Lindermayer, Degland, Gerbe, Doderlein, 



" -cmlori, J\V?rfvH, Dresser, &c. 

 Troglodytes europaeus, Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. fyc. Brit. 3fu*. p. 25 (1816). 



'dytes punctatus, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 551 . 

 Troglodytes regulas (,- r, Taschenb. p. 96 (1- L 



_.oiytes vulgaris, Flem. Brit. An. p. 73 (1828). 



Anorthura communis, Rennie, Mont. Orn. Diet. 2nd ed. p. 570 (1831). 

 Troglodytes communis (Rennie), Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1834, p. 51. 

 Anorthura troglodytes (Linn.), Macg. Brit. B. iii. p. 15, fig. 188 (1840). 

 Troglodytes troglodytes (Linn.), ScJJegel, Rev. Crit. p. xliv (1844). 



The Common Wren is generally distributed throughout the British 

 Islands, even in the wildest and most desolate districts. It is a common 

 bird in the most secluded of the Outer Hebrides ; and even on such bare 

 islets as the Bass and Ailsa Craig its lively song may be heard from the 

 heather and the scanty brushwood. It ranges as far north as the Orkneys 

 and the Shetlands, where a few breed, and is generally distributed in the 

 Channel Islands. 



Ornithologists have treated the Wren and its varieties even more capri- 

 ciously than they have treated the Creeper. Sharpe, though sufficiently 

 far in advance of his fellow ornithologists to recognize varieties under the 

 name of subspecies, most unaccountably does not do so in the case of the 

 Wren, but actually subdivides it into nine full species. These are nothing 

 but climatic races. The Wren is an inhabitant of both hemispheres ; and 

 during the warm period which followed the Glacial epoch it was probably 

 circumpolar ; now it is not found anywhere so far north as the Arctic circle. 

 Even in Scandinavia, under the influence of the Gulf-stream, it has never 

 been recorded from any locality north of lat. 66. It is rare at Archangel, 

 in lat. 63. In Siberia it has not been found north of lat. 54, and in 

 America not north of lat. 56. Its southern range appears to be bounded 

 by the Atlas mountains in North Africa, by Central Persia, the Himalayas, 

 and Japan in Asia, and by the plateaux of Southern Mexico in America. 



Distributed over such a large range of country, it meets with various 

 climates, and varies somewhat in colour accordingly. 



Troglodytes parvulus, var. nipalensis, is found in the Himalayas and the 



