360 WRYNECK. 



supplied. This was seen by Montague, who 

 kept a female in confinement, supplying it with 

 ants for food. In the ant hills it is said to intro- 

 duce the tongue into the hollow parts, thus 

 rousing the community and bringing them within 

 reach upon the surface. The eggs are laid in 

 holes of trees on the rotten wood without lining. 

 This has been the manner in which they have 

 been, by most authors, considered to be deposited. 

 But we find Mr Salmon giving an instance, 

 where he pulled out the nest, composed of moss, 

 feathers, &c. five times, taking in all twenty-two 

 eggs from the birds. He, at the same time, 

 however, states, that it may have been the old 

 nest of the redstart on which the eggs had been 

 deposited.* 



To describe this beautifully pencilled bird is 

 almost impossible, the colours are so blended. 

 Above, the general tint is of a yellowish gray, 

 mottled with black and brown ; on the centre of 

 the back the middle of the feathers is black, and 

 the ground colour is of a browner tint; this also 

 covers the scapulars, where the feathers are 

 tipped with a yellowish white, succeeded by a 

 band of black ; the quills are brownish black, 

 bordered with reddish wood brown ; the tail has 

 four irregular bars of black, broadest at the shaft, 

 and succeeded by pale mottled space on the one 

 side, darker on the other, which gives the effect 

 of three shades or bands ; the auriculars are pale 



* Loudon's Mag. vii. p. 465. 



