WOODCOCK WREN. 261 



or wood quist " (" Sapho and Phaon "). In Wiltshire it 

 becomes Quisty, and elsewhere it is Queest (q.v.). 



WOOD-SANDPIPER [No. 389]. The name is found in Pennant 



and succeeding authors to Yarrell. 



WOOD SHRIKE : The WOODCHAT SHRIKE. (Fleming.) 

 WOOD-SPITE or WOOD-SPACK : The GREEN WOODPECKER. 

 (Norfolk, Suffolk.) Occurs in Willughby (1678). The 

 original form of the word seems to be Woodspeight. 

 WOOD-SUCKER : The GREEN WOODPECKER. (New Forest.) 

 WOOD THRUSH : The MISTLE -THRUSH. (Dumfries.) 



WOOD TITMOUSE: The GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN. Mon- 

 tagu says that this species was so-called in Cornwall. The 

 name also occurs in Willughby, who says it is the GOLDEN- 

 CRESTED WREN. 



WOODWALL : The GREEN WOODPECKER. (Somersetshire.) 



WOOD-WARBLER [No. 125]. The name is first found as 

 Wood Wren in the Linnean " Trans.," n, p. 245. Up to 

 Fleming (1842) it was generally called Wood Wren, but 

 Yarrell (1843) inserted it under the name of Wood Warbler. 

 It is the Green Wren of Albin, the Yellow Willow Wren 

 of Bewick, the Yellow Woodwren of Macgillivray, and the 

 East Woodhay Warbler of Rennie's ed. (1833) of White's 

 Selborne. 



WOOD WREN. See WOOD-WARBLER. 



WOOFEL: The BLACKBIRD. (Drayton's " Polyolbion.") 



WOOLERT : The BARN-OWL. (Salop.) A corruption of Howlet. 



WRAN : The WREN. (In parts of Ireland and Scotland.) 



WRANNOCK : The WREN. (Orkneys.) 



WRANNY : The WREN. (Cornwall.) 



WREN [No. 189, WREN; No. 190, St. Kilda Wren; 

 No. 191, Shetland Wren]. The name "Wren" 

 occurs in Turner (1544), and in Merrett's list (1667). It 

 is from A.Sax. wrcenna, from wrcene= lascivious, in Dan. 

 vrinsk=proud, Swedish we?is&=uncastrated. How it came 

 to be popularly supposed more recently to be peculiarly 

 feminine is not readily apparent : 



The Robin and the Wren 



Are God's cock and hen. 



is an old and widely-accepted belief, and the idea that the 

 two mate is still seriously held by some uninformed indi- 

 viduals. The same idea is apparent in such names as 

 " Kitty Wren." 



