THE WREN. 197 



" The morn was keekin' frae the east, 

 The lav'rocks shrill, wi' dewy breast, 

 Were tow'ring past my ken, 

 Alang a burnie's flow'ry side, 

 That gurgled on wi' glancin' glide, 

 I gained a bushy glen; 

 The circling nets ilk spider weaves 

 Bent wi' clear dew-drops hung, 

 A' roun' amang the spreading leaves 

 The cheery natives sung: 

 On 'ts journey, the burnie, 

 Fell dashing down some lins, 

 White foaming, and roaming 

 In rage amang the stanes." 



There can be no doubt, I think, as to this species being identical 

 with the winter wren of America (T. hyemalis). Mr Baird, who is 

 a competent authority, has declared that the two birds are so 

 much alike that he has not been able to distinguish the one from 

 the other. This author, however, in his " Birds of North America" 

 (see page 369), has remarked that "western specimens of this 

 species appear to be of a darker reddish brown generally than in 

 the eastern, and perhaps a little larger. Northern ones are de- 

 cidedly largest." 



A somewhat interesting observation has been made by Professor 

 Newton in his appendix to Baring Gould's work on Iceland, viz.: 

 that the common wren of that country "is, to some degree, mid-way 

 in appearance between our British form and T. aedon of North 

 America;" and that this Iceland bird, which is the Troglodytes borealis 

 of Herr Fischer of Copenhagen, is easily distinguished from our 

 own familiar species by its much larger bill and feet. These 

 characters are indeed what one might expect to belong to 

 a bird of its habits, permanently resident in a country like 

 Iceland, where its whole life must be spent on the surface 

 of barren wastes, scattered over with rugged boulders, and 

 where a longer bill for extracting insect prey from the cracks 

 and crevices is absolutely needful. The same form is probably 

 found in the Faroe islands, and is thus spoken of by Landt in 

 his description of that outlying group : " The wren in Feroese 

 musa brouir is found everywhere, particularly in the northern 

 islands ; for as there are no rats on these islands there are also no 

 cats, which are great enemies to this bird. It is called by the 

 Feroese musa brouir, that is, the mouse's brother, because it is like 



