GREAT CAROLINA WREN. 191 
such as inhabit watery places, roots of bushes, and piles 
of old timber. 
It were much to be wished that the summer resi- 
dence, nest, and eggs of this bird, were precisely 
ascertained, which would enable us to determine whether 
it be, what I strongly suspect it is, the same species as 
the common domestic wren of Britain. 
SUBGENUS II. — THRYOTHORUS, VIEILL. 
144 . TROGLODYTES LUDOVICIANUS , BONAPARTE. 
CERTIIIA CAROLINIAN A, WILSON. — GREAT CAROLINA WREN. 
WILSON, PLATE XII. FIG. V. 
This is another of those equivocal species that so 
often occur to puzzle the naturalist. The general 
appearance of this bird is such, that the most illiterate 
would at first sight call it a wren ; but the common 
wren of Europe, and the winter wren of the United 
States, are both warblers, judging them according to 
the simple principle of Linnseus. The present species, 
however, and the marsh wren, though possessing great 
family likeness to those above mentioned, are decisively 
creepers, if the bill, the tongue, nostrils, and claws, 
are to be the criteria by which we are to class them. 
The colour of the plumage of birds is hut an uncertain 
and inconstant guide ; and though in some cases it 
serves to furnish a trivial or specific appellation, yet 
can never lead us to the generic one. I have, there- 
fore, notwithstanding the general appearance of these 
birds, and the practice of former ornithologists, removed 
them to the genus certhia * from that of motacilla , 
where they have hitherto been placed. 
This bird is frequently seen, early in May, along the 
shores of the Delaware, and other streams that fall into 
it on both sides, thirty or forty miles below Philadelphia ; 
but is rather rare in Pennsylvania. This circumstance 
is a little extraordinary ; since, from its size and stout 
* It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader, that the arrange- 
ment of the original edition is not followed in the present. 
