116 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
very rapid. As the birds flew from tree to tree, I noticed that they usually 
dropped down into the branches in preference to flying up into them from 
below. When sitting in the trees the males occasionally uttered a 
twittering note, which put me in mind of the Greenfinch. In fact, the 
Hawfinch possesses slight claim to rank as a songster; in the vernal year 
it utters a few loud notes, which might almost be called monotonous, 
if several birds did not join in the chorus, when the general effect is far 
from unpleasing. Many birds love to perch in conspicuous positions when 
engaged in song, but the Hawfinch twitters from the dense recesses of the 
foliage, and keeps well out of sight amongst the trees. 
Writing of the Pied Flycatcher (p. 51) he says :— 
““T have had many opportunities of studying the habits of this inter- 
esting bird, both in North Africa, where it is specially common, and in the 
wooded hill districts of Yorkshire. In the former country I met with it 
both in the oasis of the Sahara, as well as in the Arab gardens high up the 
solitudes of the Aures Mountains. In England it loves the birch coppices 
near the mountain streams, especially where old decaying timber is 
abundant; and in all situations its conspicuous dress of black and white 
makes its identification easy. . .. In Africa this species is constantly to 
be seen in company with the Spotted Flycatcher, but in Great Britain the 
haunts of the two species are considerably different,—one bird loving the 
wilderness, and the other cultivated localities and the habitation of man.” 
It would have been well, perhaps, if Mr. Dixon had told us a 
little more about the St. Kilda Wren, which from his remarks 
might be supposed to have been unknown until, as he says, he 
was fortunate enough to discover it some four years ago. All 
that Mr. Dixon really did was to remind ornithologists that a 
Wren existed on St. Kilda, which was little known for the reason 
that few naturalists visit that remote isle. But it was no new 
discovery, for the bird in question may be found mentioned in 
Macaulay’s ‘ History of St. Kilda,’ 1764; and even longer ago 
than that, in Martin's ‘ Voyage to St. Kilda,’ 1698. Mr. Seebohm, 
in 1884, conceiving from its isolated haunt that it might present 
some peculiarity as insular forms often do, and believing from 
examination of a specimen brought from St. Kilda by Mr. Dixon, 
that it might be specifically distinguished from the common Wren 
of this country, described it in ‘The Zoologist’ for 1884 
(pp. 883—335) under the name Troglodytes hirtensis, giving at the 
same time a nicely engraved figure of it. The following year in 
‘The Ibis’ (1885, pp. 69—97), Mr. Dixon referred to it in an 
