WRYNECK. 153 



comes an object of terror to a timid intruder, and the bird 

 taking advantage of a moment of indecision, darts with the 

 rapidity of lightning from a situation whence escape seemed 

 impossible. 



These birds feed on caterpillars and various other insects, 

 and are often seen on the ground near ant-hills, consuming 

 as food large quantities of the ants and their eggs. Bech- 

 stein says the Wryneck will eat elderberries. The anato- 

 mical construction of the tongue and its appendages in the 

 Wryneck, and the consequent mode of taking its food, like 

 the Woodpeckers, will amply repay the closest examination. 

 By an elongation of the two posterior branches of the bones 

 of the tongue, and the exercise of the muscles attached to 

 them, this bird is able to extend the tongue a very consider- 

 able distance beyond the point of the beak ; the end of the 

 tongue is horny and hard ; a large and long gland is situated 

 at the under edge of the lower jaw on each side, which 

 secretes a glutinous mucus, and transfers it to the inside of 

 the mouth by a slender duct. With this glutinous mucus 

 the end of the tongue is always covered, for the especial 

 purpose of conveying food into the mouth by contact. So 

 unerring is the aim with which the tongue is darted out, and 

 so certain the effect of the adhesive moisture, that the bird 

 never fails in obtaining its object at every attempt. So rapid, 

 also, is the action of the tongue in thus conveying food into 

 the mouth, that the eye is unable distinctly to follow it, and 

 Colonel Montagu, who had an opportunity of observing this 

 bird feed while confined in a cage, says, that an anfs egg, 

 which is of a light colour, and more conspicuous than the 

 tongue, had somewhat the appearance of moving towards the 

 mouth by attraction, as a needle flies to a magnet. In con- 

 sequence of this bird feeding frequently at the ant-hills, the 

 author of the Journal of a Naturalist, has observed, that its 

 long glutinous tongue collects much of the soil of the heaps, 



