466 TROGLODYTIDJS. 



4th, 1846 (as appears by the ' Literary Gazette,' p. 131, of 

 the 7th of that month), Mr. Crofton Croker drew attention to 

 the subject at a meeting of the British Archaeological Associa- 

 tion, and it was stated that a similar custom existed in Pem- 

 brokeshire, where on Twelfth-day a Wren was carried from 

 house to house in a box with glass windows, surmounted by a 

 wheel, to which ribbons were hung. Sonnini (Voyage dans 

 la Haute et la Basse figypte, i. p. 18) mentions a like cere- 

 mony practised a century ago, towards the end of December, 

 at La Ciotat near Marseilles, but there the Wren's murderers 

 were armed with swords and pistols, and their victim was 

 slung to a pole borne, as if it were a heavy load, on the 

 shoulders of two men, who paraded the village, and then, 

 after gravely weighing it in a great pair of scales, all gave 

 themselves up to festivity *. 



The bill has the upper mandible dark brown, the lower 

 pale wood-brown : the irides hazel : over the eye and ear- 

 coverts runs a streak of dull white ; the upper parts gene- 

 rally are reddish-brown, with narrow transverse bars of dark 



* It is for antiquaries to throw light on the origin of this widely-spread cus- 

 tom, of which many unsatisfactory explanations have been attempted. It has 

 been ascribed to a Wren which, alighting on a drumhead, roused and saved from 

 defeat some Protestant troops in the Irish civil wars of the seventeenth century. 

 Others refer it to a similar incident some centuries earlier, in the wars of the 

 Danish occupation of Ireland. Others say that the Wren was an object of so 

 great veneration to the "Druids," that the early Christian missionaries enjoined 

 its persecution upon all adherents to the new faith. Any speculations would here 

 be futile, though one cannot but be struck with some coincidences. The 

 Wren in the first line of the Irish song is called the king of birds. The 

 Pembrokeshire ceremony was or is performed on Twelfth-day the feast of the 

 Three Kings, and the bird was also spoken of as the king. The common name 

 of the bird, shared to some extent with the Golden-crested Wren, in most Euro- 

 pean languages llasiliskos, Reytdus, Rcyezuelo, Reatino, Roitelel, Zaunkoniy, 

 Kunysfoyel, Ellekonye, Winter koninkje and so forth all assign to it the kingly 

 dignity. These names probably are connected with the old and well-known fable 

 of birds choosing for their king that one of them which should mount highest in 

 the air. This the Eagle seemed to do, and all were ready to do him homage, when 

 a loud burst of song was heard, and perched upon the Eagle's head was the exultant 

 Wren, which unseen and unfelt had been borne aloft by the giant. In England 

 this story does not seem to have had hold, and so far from ascribing royal qualities 

 to our little favourite, it is nearly everywhere known to us by the humbler name 

 of "Kitty "or "Jenny "Wren. 



