ST. KTLDA AND ITS BIHDS. 361 



very manifest, as well as the more profuse barring- of the 

 abdomen, flanks, and under-tail coverts. The above 

 characters are well shown in a specimen which I obtained 

 on the island, which was skinned and preserved on the 

 spot, and the pale colour cannot, therefore, be due to 

 preservation in spirits, as Dresser (10) appears to suggest, 

 since my specimen never came into contact with spirit 

 at all. The light colour certainly renders the bird less 

 conspicuous amongst the grey rocks, which it frequents, 

 than the common form of T. parvulus would be, and it 

 has doubtless been modified in this direction by a process 

 of selection. 



The nest of the St. Kildan wren closely resembles that 

 of the common British type, but the materials of which 

 it is composed are coarser than is usual in the case of the 

 latter bird, and it is not quite so neatly constructed. A 

 favourite situation for the nest is amongst the stones of 

 the cleits, but it breeds amongst the rocks, and I care- 

 fully examined two which were placed in the latter 

 situation, one on Boreray, and the other on Soay. The 

 position occupied in both these cases was strikingly 

 similar, and the one nest was almost a counterpart of the 

 other. The nest was placed well beneath a large over- 

 hanging tuft of a coarse wiry grass (Aira flexuosa) which 

 in the one case overhung the top of a peaty bank amongst 

 the cliffs, and in the other grew out of a crevice in the 

 naked rock. The nest was placed right in amongst the 

 withered stems of the previous year's growth of grass, 

 and was exceedingly well concealed. To add to the 

 deception the exterior of the nest itself was composed of 

 dead stems of the same withered grass amongst which it 

 was placed, the whole being woven together in such a 

 way that it was difficult in some places to say where the 

 nest ended and the dead grass^ amidst which it was placed, 



