PICARI^. ( 265 ) PICIDAi. 



THE WRYNECK. 



cuckoo's leader, cuckoo's mate, cuckoo's messenger, 

 pea bird, summer bird, emmet hunter. 



lynx torquilla. 



Full nature siuarms with life ; 



The flowery leaf 



Wants not its soft inhabitants. Secure 



Within its winding citadel, the stone 



Holds multitudes. But chief the forest boughs 



That dance unn umber d to the playful breeze, 



The dow7iy orchard and the melting pulp 



Of mellow fruit, the naftieless nations feed 



Of evanescent iiisects. 



Thomson, Sununer. 



Although the Wryneck is a common summer visitor to 

 the south-east of England, and is occasionally seen in the 

 northern counties, it has been very rarely observed in 

 Berwickshire. There is no record of its occurrence in the 

 county, in the History of the Berwiclcsliire Naturalists Club — 

 a publication which, for the last fifty-four years, has been 

 devoted to the natural history of Berwickshire and the 

 surrounding district.^ 



Colonel Milne-Home of Wedderburn has informed me 

 that on the afternoon of the 31st of July 1887, he and his 

 sisters, the Misses Milne- Home of Milne Graden, saw a 

 Wryneck on the stone side-post of a window on the prin- 

 cipal staircase of Milne Graden House. When it was first 



1 It is stated in Yarrell's British Birds (vol. ii. p. 156, 1st ed. ) that " there 

 are records of this bird [the Wryneck] having been killed twice in Berwickshire," 

 but no locality in the county is mentioned. 



