THE WRYNECK 131 
Sus-Famity TLYNGINZ 
THE WRYNECK 
IYNX TORQUILLA 
Upper plumage reddish grey, irregularly spotted and lined with brown and 
black ; a broad black and brown band from the back of the head to the 
back; throat and breast yellowish red, with dusky transverse rays ; 
rest of the under plumage whitish, with arrow shaped black spots ; outer 
web of the quills marked with rectangular alternate black and yellowish 
ted spots; tail-feathers barred with black zigzag bands; beak and feet 
olive brown. Lengthsix inches and a half; breadtheleveninches. Eggs 
glossy white. 
THE note of the Wryneck is so peculiar that it can be confounded 
with none of the natural sounds of the country ; a loud, rapid, harsh 
cry of pay-pay-pay from a bird about the size of a lark may be 
referred without hesitation to the Wryneck. Yet it is a pleasant 
sound after all—‘the merry pee-bird’ a poet calls it—and the 
untuneful minstrel is the same bird which is known by the name 
of ‘Cuckoo’s Mate’, andso is associated with May-days, pleasant 
jaunts into the country, hayfields, the memory of past happy days 
and the hope of others to come. This name it derives not from any 
fondness it exhibits for the society of the cuckoo, as it is a bird of 
remarkably solitary habits, but because it arrives generally a few 
days before the cuckoo. Not less singular than its note is its plum- 
age, which, though unmarked by gaudiness of colouring, is very 
beautiful, being richly embroidered as it were with brown and black 
on areddish grey ground. In habits, it bears no marked resemblance 
to the Woodpeckers ; it is not much given to climbing and never taps 
the trunks of trees ; yet it does seek its food on decayed trees, and em- 
ploys its long horny tongue in securing insects. It darts its tongue 
with inconceivable rapidity into an ant-hill and brings it out as 
rapidly, with the insects and their eggs adhering to its viscid point. 
These constitute its principal food, so that it is seen more frequently 
feeding on the ground than hunting on trees. But by far the strangest 
peculiarity of the Wryneck, stranger than its note and even than 
its worm-like tongue, is the wondrous pliancy of its neck, which 
one might almost imagine to be furnished with a ball and socket 
joint. A country boy who had caught one of 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 offer 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 
