44 NORTHERN WREN. 



abundant in those parts where there are no rats nor mice, and con- 

 sequently where cats are not encouraged; but where the cats are 

 numerous you may look in vain for this sweet songster. I made my 

 first acquaintance with it on the island of Skua? on the 23rd. of May. 

 They are to be seen about the village in considerable numbers, 

 running in and out of the chinks between the stone-built cottages 

 like mice, then alighting on the grass roofs, and with outspread wings 

 and swelled throat pouring forth a stream of melody far exceeding 

 that of T. parmlus. As soon as it was known that I wanted 

 f Mousabrouir ' nests and eggs, a brisk search commenced, boys, girls, 

 and women aiding it. I was taken from outhouse to outhouse to 

 look at nests; all were exactly alike outwardly — a firm structure of 

 hay, next a lining of moss, then a snug bed of down and sea-fowl 

 feathers. All the nests I saw were placed in the same position, viz.: 

 between the blocks of stone of which the outhouses are built, the 

 entrance to the nest invariably facing inwards. I examined seven or 

 eight nests in this village: one only had eggs, the rest had young 

 two or three days old. On the island of Great Dimon I found the 

 Wren numerous, and discovered its nest in a cave close to the landing 

 place, far away from the habitations of men. At Porkeru, on the 80th. 

 of May, 1872, I noticed a brood of five following their parents in 

 and out of the boat-houses. In the northern islands it is abundant. 

 In Swinoe, on the 7th. of June, I saw a brood following their parents, 

 who collected them together with a chirp, and then fed them with 

 insects that they had picked out of the gutter. The same day I put 

 my hand into a nest, and drew an old one out of it; it flew a few 

 feet from me, perched on the gunwale of a boat, and broke out in a 

 merry song. Before I left the boat-house the Wren returned to its 

 nest. When I staid at the Pastor's house at Videroe, I was awakened 

 in the morning by the song of this bird close to the open window, 

 so loud and so melodious that no one could help noticing the difference 

 between its note and the more feeble efforts of our Common Wren/' 



The egg is considerably larger than that of our bird, measuring, 

 according to Dresser, |^ by |§ to §§ by f§ inch, but do not differ in 

 colour or markings. 



The bird and its egg figured by me are from specimens lent to 

 me by Mr. Dresser. The bird has been well figured in his "Birds 

 of Europe," and also by J. C. H. Fischer in "Journ. fur Orn.," 1861, 

 pi. 1. 



There is a Wren smaller than our English bird, found in Italy, to 

 which Salvadori has given the name of Certhia brachyclactyla. It 

 differs from C. familiaris in "the deeper colour of the upper parts, 



