LESSEE SPOTTED WOODPECKER WRYNECK. 121 



The curious 'jarring^ note produced by this bird in spring 

 was long ago noticed by Plot, who writes, ' A little Bird, some- 

 times seen, but oftner heard in the Park at Woodstock, from 

 the noise that it makes commonly called the Wood-cracker : 

 Described to me (for I had not the happiness to see it) to 

 be about the bigness of a Sparrow, with a blue back and 

 a reddish breast, a wide mouth and a long bill, which it puts 

 into a crack or splinter of a rotten bough of a Tree, and makes 

 a noise as if it were rending assunder, with that violence, that 

 the noise may be heard at least twelve score yards, some have 

 ventured to say a mile from the place/ {Natural History of 

 Oxfordshire, p. 175.) The bird he describes was evidently the 

 Nuthatch, and according to the editor of ' YarrelP (vol. 11, 

 p. 477), Plot seems to have been the first to promulgate the 

 mistaken opinion as to the origin of the noise. In the 

 second edition (1705) of his work, however, he inserts the 

 note, ' Quaere, whether this be the Picus Martins of Mr. Ray 

 mentioned in the Phil. Trans, pp. 1043, 1044.' Ornithologists 

 do not appear to be entirely satisfied as to the manner in 

 which the jarring is effected, but on the only occasion on 

 which I have had an opportunity of clearly observing the 

 bird while in the act of producing the noise, it certainly 

 seemed to be the result of a succession of exceedingly quick 

 taps on the branch; when the sound was heard, the bird^s 

 head moved with inconceivable rapidity, and the noise, which 

 could be heard at a considerable distance, was louder when 

 the bird operated on some boughs than on others. 



THE wryij:eck. ' 



lynx torquiUa. 

 The Wryneck is a summer visitor, arriving at the end 

 of March, or early in April, and generally making its presence 

 known by its resonant cry, que qne que, repeated many times 

 in succession. It is not at all a common bird with us, and 

 there is some evidence to show that it has become rarer of 



