884 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



tioned, as well as mj' failure to obtain a specimen. The inquiry would 

 naturally suggest itself to any one aware of the variations of Troglodytes 

 parvulus, but my attention was first directed to it two years ago by my 

 friend Mr. A. G. More. That St. Kilda possesses a Wren was not first 

 ascertained by Mr. Dixon, as stated by Mr. Seebohm, for its existence was 

 recorded so far back as 1098 by Martin in his ' Voyage to St. Kilda ' [as 

 also in Macaulay's ' History of St. Kilda,' 1764, p. 160.— Ed.] A Wren, 

 too, was seen there by Atkinson in 1831 (Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Newcastle). 

 It must, however, be rare there and difficult to meet with, for I only came 

 across it six times during three weeks; and T visited every island of the 

 group possessing vegetation, Borrera, Soa, the Doon, and St. Kilda proper. 

 I do not wonder therefore that Macgillivray, who spent four days on 

 St. Kilda, has omitted to mention it (Edinb. Phil. Journal), and that Sir 

 William Milner, who only remained there three days (Zool. 1818), does not 

 make any allusion to it. There is perhaps some danger in giving the 

 exact localities or islands on which I saw this Wren. One, however, may 

 with safety be referred to. Armed with a vasculum and gun I was 

 botanising on the ledges of the great cliff Conacher (1220 feet) wherever it 

 was possible to creep, thus encumbered, when I saw a rope descending over 

 a ledge, and attached above to a rotten peg. Knowing that some men must 

 be Fulmar-catching below I awaited their return, but, losing patience, laid 

 aside the gun and vasculum, and, taking off my boots, descended hand over 

 hand some three or four hundred feet, having first ascertained that the peg 

 was not so rotten as it looked. Going down the rope a Wren flew out of a 

 crack, and T paused for three or four minutes, placing my feet against the 

 rock, and watched it hopping among the luxuriant herbage which grows 

 here in every cleft and fissure. I may here correct a common impression 

 that St. Kilda is extremely barren. Some regard it as an igneous rock 

 with precipitous sides, whose summit has less vegetation than the lava-beds 

 of Iceland ; and Mr. Seebohm says it does not possess a " tree or shrub, or 

 even a bush of heather." There are 110 phanerogams on St. Kilda, and 

 amongst them are Sambucits nigra (planted), Salix herhacea, Calluna 

 vulgaris, Erica cincrea, and Lonicera periclymenum. On three islands, 

 Borrera, Soa, and the Doon, the grass is long and plentiful between the 

 rocks, and, though St. Kilda proper has a very l}arren look from the sea, a 

 short examination will show that, although the flowering plants are com- 

 paratively few, yet some of them grow with exceptional luxuriance on the 

 cliffs where they are beyond the reach of sheep. The sorrel (Rumex acetusa) 

 especially attracts attention on the north-east of St. Kilda, and the primrose 

 can be gathered here in most places. The Wren has therefore plenty of 

 cover, and I should say insects also ; and it would take some of the best 

 cragsmen in the Alpine Club to extirpate it. I never saw it within 400 ft. 

 of tlie svaler's edge. Those who study the daily weather charts issued from 



