YUNX TORQUILLA. 



499 



marked bird when inspected. It arrives in April. Its usual 

 cry is like the Idee, Jdee, klee of the kestrel. Its chief food 

 is ants and their larvae, but it also searches for insects on trees, 

 especially firs. When feeding on ants its body is motionless, 

 but its head is rapidly turned from side to side, while its bill 

 removes the soil, and its long extensile tongue is thrust into the 

 crevices to draw out the ants and their eggs on its horny, 

 glutinous point, which can reach to a great length, owing to the 

 extreme length of the horns of the hyoid bone, which curves 

 over the head and reach to the base of the upper mandible. 

 Two long salivary glands, under the tongue, open into the 

 mouth by two ducts, and pour a copious viscid fluid, which 

 covers the tongue and makes the ants and their larvae or other 

 small insects stick to it. Montagu says : — 



" We examined this bird minutely by taking a female from her nest and 

 confining her in a cage for some days. A quantity of mould with emmets 

 and their eggs were given to it, and it was curious to see the tongue darted 

 forward and retracted with such velocity and with such unerring aim that 

 it never returned without an ant or an egg adhering to it, not transfixed by 

 the horny point as some imagined, but retained by a peculiar tenacious 

 moisture by nature provided for that purpose. While it is feeding the 

 body is motionless, the head only is turned to every side, and the motion of 

 the tongue is so rapid that an ant's egg, which is of a light colour and more 

 conspicuous than the tongue, seems moving towards the mouth by 

 attraction, as a needle flies to a magnet. The bill is rarely used, except 

 to remove the mould in order to get more readily at the insects ; where the 

 earth is hollow the tongue is thrust into all the cavities to rouse the ants ; 

 for this purpose the horny appendage is extremely serviceable as a guide to 

 the tongue. We have seen the green woodpecker take its food in a similar 

 way, and most likely every species of that genus does the same." 



And as a good reason why it is not oftener seen, another 

 observer, Mr Knapp, says : — 



"Shy and unusually timid, as if all its life were spent in retirement 

 away from man, it remains through the day on some ditch bank or basks 

 in the sun on the ant hills nearest its retreat, which it depopulates for food 

 by its long glutinous tougue, which collects soil along with the insects, 

 hence we find a much larger portion of grit in its stomach than other birds. 

 When disturbed its flight is precipitate and awkward, soon hides itself, 

 and were not its haunts and habits known, we should never think that this 

 bustling fugitive was our shy- Spring visitant, the wryneck." 



I came upon one on the dry ditch bank surrounding the old 



fir wood on Tentsmuir, which flew exactly as described. As 



an encouragement to my young friends, Mr Hewitson in his 

 " Eggs of British Birds," says : — 



" Although I have spent much of my time in the country, and always on 

 the lookout for it, I have rarely seen it, and was the more surprised when, 

 in going along a public road one day, I passed two seated side by side on 

 the top of a stake fence." 



