150 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
journeyings is accomplished mostly by discon- 
tinuous flights from tuft to tuft of sedge, from 
stool to stool of fern. 
They are at least as active, however, on their 
legs as on their wings. The hop of the Bush 
Wren is a remarkable performance. However 
alike the bird may be, stuffed and stiff in a museum, 
to its kinsman the Rock Wren, the difference in 
their hopping movements in life distinguish them 
instantly and unforgettably. During the first 
saltatory movement the Bush Wren carries him- 
self parallel to the earth; at the termination, 
however, of each leap he telescopes upwards on 
his toes, momentarily erecting himself in the 
oddest way to his full height. When the two 
movements are blended in rapid action, what 
with his whitish feet, short toes, long thin legs, 
and tightly folded body plumage, he resembles 
in no small degree a barefooted bairn running 
on the sands with tucked-up garments firmly 
fastened round the waist. He passes through 
- the darkling underscrub like a forest gnome, like 
a woodland brownie. 
In the island Wren we may see perchance a 
minute example of the pressure of species one upon 
the other in a congested area. We can picture the 
Wren as he was and as he is. By a very limited 
exercise of imagination we may visualise him, not 
confined as now to a few acres on a tiny island, 
