WRYNECK. COMMON CEEEPEK. 295 



abstracted from tlie nest, on four different occasions, 

 before the favourite spot was deserted. A very similar 

 occurrence came under my notice in 1855 at Bramerton, 

 where a Wryneck had fixed its abode in the trunk 

 of an old tree. This bird permitted twenty out of 

 twenty-three eggs to be taken away at different periods, 

 vdthout forsaking the nest, and ultimately brought off 

 three young ones from the eggs that were left. It is 

 even more strange, perhaps, that in the following 

 summer from the same nest, and most probably from 

 the same bird, eighteen out of twenty-two eggs were 

 taken, and yet, one being left each time, she still con- 

 tinued to lay. Whether descendants from this perse- 

 vering couple still occupy their ancestral abode, it is 

 difficult to say, but in 1857 I was shown four young ones, 

 which had been reared in the same hole. This is no doubt 

 the species referred to by Sir Thomas Browne as "an 

 hobby-bird, so called because it comes either with, or a 

 little before, the hobbies in the spring. Of the bigness of 

 a thrush, coloured and paned hke a hawk ; marvellously 

 subject to the vertigo, and are sometimes taken in those 

 fits." The strange actions of the wryneck, from which 

 its ordinary name is derived, no doubt originated the 

 quaint conceit of this celebrated Norfolk naturalist. 



CERTHIA FAMILIARIS, Linn^us. 



COMMON CREEPEE. 



This diminutive and most interesting species is resi- 

 dent with us throughout the year, and very generally 

 distributed ; though far oftener heard than seen, from 

 their quick mouse-Hke actions, and the wonderful assimi- 

 lation of their brown tints to the branches and stems of 

 the trees they frequent. The practised ear of a naturalist 



