246 
The Irish Naturalist. 
iDecember, 
occasionally in Spring a number of mainland Wrens, finding 
all the suitable nesting-sites occupied by stronger members 
of the same pugnacious species, travel seawards to the 
Tuskar as a forlorn hope ? 
The Wren inhabits and breeds on more islands and rocks 
than possibly any other British bird. In Iceland, it is 
called the " Mouse's brother," for it lives in cracks, crevices, 
and holes. Therefore a voyage to an outlying rock is not 
such an adventure for a Wren as might be supposed. 
In the Autumn, again, it is evident, the wren population 
has enormously increased, for the families are large, and 
the parents will not tolerate any subdivision of their little 
holdings, and while able to do so, force the youngsters to 
travel elsewhere or emigrate. Confident of their ability 
to sustain life during the winter on bleak and inhospitable 
looking islands, they travel along the coast in search of a 
home, and at the extreme S.E. of Wexford, the southern 
and eastern voyagers meet, and selecting a dark night, 
so as to be safe from Gulls and Skuas, they reach the 
Tuskar, which contrary to expectation affords neither 
suitable food nor shelter. Here, tired and hungry, they 
become an easy prey in the daytime for some marauding 
Seagull, to whom a dozen Wrens are scarcely more than a 
good mouthful. 
A friend has drawn attention to the fact that during the 
past thirty years, not a single Wren has ever been received 
from a lightship ; all the specimens, about thirty in num- 
ber, have been forwarded from rock stations. 
The Golden -crested Wren, on the other hand, has over 
and over again been killed or captured on lightships. 
Why should this be ? and why is it that Lucifer Shoals 
Lightship and Blackwater Bank Lightship, both north of 
the Tuskar, and Barrels Rock Lightship and , Coningbeg 
Lightship to the south of it have never forwarded a Wren ? 
and yet on the 17th October last, " a great flock of the 
Common Brow^n Wren " is recorded from the Tuskar, and 
ten specimens forwarded in the flesh as evidence of the 
fact. 
