WRYNECK. 493 



and almost tbrongboiit India. It is not uncommon as a 

 bird of passage on the Arabian coast and in Egypt, and 

 seems to winter in Bogos-land, Abyssinia and Kordofan, but 

 further southward we have as yet no trace of it. In North- 

 western Africa it commonly appears as a summer-visitant, 

 though some examples very likely winter in Algeria, as they 

 are believed to do in Greece and other parts of the south of 

 Europe. Throughout the rest of Europe the species is 

 pretty generally distributed. 



The adult has the beak brown : the irides pale hazel : the 

 upper plumage generally greyish-brown, produced by minute 

 specks of blackish-brown on a light ground, with blackish- 

 brown bars on the top of the head and lower part of the back, 

 and broad stripes of the same colour on the nape, middle of 

 the back, scapulars and tertials, varied also in places with 

 buff patches, fine black streaks and a few irregular spots of 

 greyish-white ; the feathers of the fore part of the wing 

 more regularly tipped with buff and barred with blackish- 

 brown that often takes an arrow-headed form ; the wing- 

 quills dull brown, barred on the outer web with deep buff 

 and having triangular spots of a paler buff on the margin 

 of the inner web ; tail-quills minutely freckled with brown, 

 buff and greyish-white, with six irregular blackish-brown 

 bars of varying width, each succeeded by a lighter transverse 

 space ; the lower plumage generally dull white, tinged more 

 or less deeply with buff on the throat, flanks and tail-coverts, 

 and barred with dark brown except on the breast and belly 

 where the markings become arrow-headed in form : legs, toes 

 and claws, brown. 



The whole length is about seven inches. From the carpal 

 joint to the tip of the wing, three inches and a quarter ; 

 the first primary is so small as to have often escaped 

 notice,* the second and fourth nearly equal, longer than 

 the fifth, but a little shorter than the third, which in this 

 species is longest. 



The female hardly differs from the male, but her plumage 



* 111 tlio African /. pecUmdk the first primary is much larger, being one- 

 third as hjng as the second, while tlic third and fourth are almost equal. 



