1744 



THE PICARIAN BIRDS 



sound it was able to produce as it was by my sudden advent. It is very fond of 

 knocking about in low brushwood. I do not know its call, nor do I think that I 

 ever heard one. It is usually alone, but sometimes pairs are met with." Mr. Hume 

 has received a piece of bamboo, selected by the bird for its nesting place, which was 

 only two and a half inches in diameter. It was a dry bamboo, and into this, at a 

 height of about three feet from the ground and six inches above the joint, the bird 

 had drilled a small circular hole. Interiorly it had grooved with its little bill the 

 whole inner aspect of the lower surface of the compartment, and the little, long 

 fibrous strips thus obtained were collected at the bottom to form a bed for the eggs. 



THE WRYNECKS 



Family 



Of this family only four species are known, one enjoying a wide range in 

 Europe and Asia, while the other three are confined to Africa south of the Sahara; 

 these being lynx pectoralis, inhabiting the eastern districts of the Cape Colony, 

 Natal, and the Eastern Transvaal, and extending to the Lower Congo district in 

 West Africa; /. pulchricollis is known from Eastern Equatorial Africa, where it was 



discovered by Emin Pasha; and /. czquato- 

 rialis, inhabiting the southern provinces of 

 Abyssinia and Shoa. The wrynecks may 

 be termed soft-tailed woodpeckers, and have 

 the tail rather long, and not spiny; while 

 the nostrils are not concealed by bristles, 

 but partially hidden by a membrane. Their 

 plumage is very remarkable, the whole of 

 the upper surface being mottled or vermic- 

 ulated as it is called, with a crowd of little 

 wavy black lines. The English species is 

 also known as the snake bird, because of 

 the curious way in which it twists and 

 turns its head about, and elongates its 

 neck, hissing all the way most vigorously, 

 and spreading out the feathers of its head. 

 It has an extensile tongue, like that of the 

 woodpeckers, but even longer than is usual 

 in that family, and the way in which it 



darts its tongue out rapidly completes the resemblance of the head to that of a 

 snake, and has doubtless had something to do with its sobriquet of snake bird. The 

 common wryneck (/. torqidlla) is a summer visitor to Europe and Northern Asia; in 

 many parts of Great Britain being known, besides its name of snake bird, as the 

 cuckoo's mate, since it generally arrives a little before that bird, and is supposed to 



WRYNECK. 



