50 THE CONDOR Vol. XXII 
The explanation offered to account for the restocking of the island is that there 
are occasional migrations, small perhaps, but existent nevertheless, of birds 
from the Aleutian chain. Now there are certain difficulties in the way of ac- 
cepting such a bit of evidence. If the Pribilof Wren remains the same from 
decade to decade, then the immigrants in question must come from distant 
Kodiak as all of the other races are distinct. It is true that each year land 
birds of other species, lost in the fogs or blown out of their course by storms, 
make their way to the Pribilofs; but in the present case, neglecting the tax on 
the bird’s physical powers, one cannot conceive of such a delicate adjustment 
of the forces of nature whereby a few inhabitants of a very circumscribed area 
are driven into an equally well defined and devastated region at exactly the 
proper time. 
A more reasonable explanation is that, even in the most severe winters, or 
when foes are more than usually abundant, a few individuals are preserved. 
Fig. 7. NESTING SITE, INDICATED BY ARROW, OF ALASKA WREN; ST. GeorGe ISLAND. 
This past year is a case in point. The winter of 1919 was the most severe in 
fifty years, and at the instigation of Dr. G. Dallas Hanna, naturalist of the fur 
seal herd at that time, a very careful search was made of all of the islands of 
the Pribilof group. Just one pair of wrens was seen along the south coast of 
St. George Island, and, though a most tenuous thread, it is to be hoped that 
this pair may unite the past with an extensive future population. 
Until recent years the wrens on the Pribilof Islands were strictly limited 
to the island of St. George. In 1915, however, six individuals were observed 
by Dr. Hanna on St. Paul Island, and of these, three were secured. None, so 
far as I now recall, have since been noted there, but in the summer of 1918 a 
considerable number were seen on Otter Island, a small body of land four miles 
to the southward. In the summer of 1917 I noticed two individuals near the 
village of St. George, but owing to lack of time no attempt was made to study 
i, 
