PiciD^. 215 



Wryneck, Yunx to)^qwUla. Provincial, Rind- 

 ing Bird. One of the few local epithets worth 

 recording.* So termed in many parts of Sussex 

 from its appearance in the spring being supposed 

 to indicate the proper time for felling the oak 

 trees, and removinsr the bark or rind from the 

 trunks and branches, an employment in which a 



* I confess that I do not attach so much importance 

 to provincial nomenclature as it would appear to pos- 

 sess in the eyes of some persons. The local names in 

 this Catalogue are but few; they have been culled 

 from a heterogeneous mass which had accumulated in 

 my note-books, and which might be supposed to have 

 originated in the Tower of Babel. I have noticed only 

 such as appeared to be expressive of some quaUty or 

 property of, or circumstance relating to, the birds them- 

 selves — such as " the barley bird," " the rinding bird," 

 " the jDarson gull," " the duck-hawk," &c. — or those 

 which, seeming sufficiently established by general usage 

 in their respective districts to have superseded the 

 ordinary and recognised names, might therefore be 

 practically useful to the collector in his inquiries 

 amongst the natives. But, as a general rule, I am 

 strongly of opinion that these provincial names ought 

 to be discarded from all works on Natural History. 

 Most of them are quite inappropriate, others devoid of 

 point or meaning, and while in one order of birds the 

 same silly nickname is frequently applied indiscrimi- 

 nately to every individual in a family, in another we 



