THE WRYNECK. 301 



these birds on its nest brought it to me on a speculation. 

 As he held it in his hand, I raised my finger towards it as 

 if about to touch its beak. The bird watched most eagerly 

 the movement of my finger, with no semblance of fear, 

 but rather with an apparent intention of resenting the 

 ofier of any injury. I moved my finger to the left ; its 

 beak followed the direction — the finger was now over its 

 back, still the beak pointed to it. In short, as a magnetic 

 needle follows a piece of steel, so the bird's beak followed 

 my finger until it was again in front, the structure of the 

 neck being such as to allow the head to make a complete 

 revolution on its axis, and this without any painful effort. 

 I purchased the bird and gave it its liberty, satisfied to 

 have discovered the propriety of the name Torquilla. * I 

 may here remark that the name Yunx, or JjiiXjf is derived 

 from its harsh cry. Besides this, the proper call-note of 

 the bird, it utters, when disturbed in its nest, another 

 which resembles a hiss; whence, and partly, perhaps, on 

 account of the peculiar structure of its neck, it is some- 

 times called the Snake-bird. Nest, properly speaking, it 

 has none ; it selects a hole in a decaying tree and lays its 

 eggs on the rotten wood. Its powers of calculating seem 

 to be of a very low order. Yarrell records an instance in 

 which four sets of eggs, amounting to twenty-two, Avere 

 successively taken before the nest was deserted ; a harsh 

 experiment, and scarcely to be justified except on the plea 

 that they were taken by some one who gained his liveli- 

 hood b}' selling eggs, or was reduced to a strait from want 

 of food. A similar instance is recorded in the Zoologist, 

 when the number of eggs taken was also twenty-two. The 

 AYryneck is a common bird in the south-eastern counties 

 of England and to the west as far as Somersetshire ; but I 

 have never heard its note in Devon or Cornwall ; it is rare 

 also in the northern counties. 



* From the Latin torqueo, "to twist." 

 + Greek tvy^ from iS^a, to "shriek," 



