been sitten upon for some time, the Wren, like all other birds, 

 becomes much more attached to them, and is not then so 

 easily driven to forsake them. The Rev. W. D. Fox has 

 communicated to me a remarkable instance of this attachment, 

 in one which would suffer its nest to be taken in the hand and 

 examined, i-emaining the while quietly seated on its eggs. 



The Wren is a hardy solitary little bird, and may be seen 

 in some of our bleakest and most unsheltered districts. We 

 saw it on some of the most sterile heaths of Shetland ; the 

 only support for its nest being the bank of some mountain 

 gully ; its only shelter the overhanging sod. 



Notwithstanding the number of eggs which the Wren has 

 been stated by Ornithologists and others to lay, I have never 

 succeeded in finding more than eight, and seldom more than 

 seven, in the same nest. They are sometimes much less 

 spotted than either of the figures, and are not unfrequently 

 quite white. 



Ornithologists differ much as to the inside of the nest of the 

 Wren ; some maintaining that it is thickly lined with feathers, 

 whilst others deny that it has any in its composition. I have 

 found it both with and without such lining ; but cannot from 

 recollection say which most frequently. 



