THE WRYNECK. 137 



The wryneck (jynx torquilla) visits us annually, but 

 in very uncertain numbers, and, from some unknown 

 cause, or local changes, in yearly diminishing quantities. 

 In one short season after its arrival we hear its singular 

 monotonous note at intervals through half the day. 

 This ceases, and we think no more about it, as it con- 

 tinues perfectly mute ; not a twit or a chirp escapes to 

 remind us of its presence during all the remainder of 

 its sojourn with us, except the maternal note or hush 

 of danger, which is a faint, low, protracted hissing, as 

 the female sits clinging by the side or on the sturnp of 

 a tree. Shy and unusually timid, as if all its life were 

 spent in the deepest retirement away from man, it re- 

 mains through the day on some ditch bank, or basks 

 with seeming enjoyment, in any sunny hour, on the 

 ant-hills nearest to its retreat ; and these it depopulates 

 for food, by means of its long glutinous tongue, which 

 with the insects collects much of the soil of the heaps, 

 as we find a much larger portion of grit in its stomach 

 than is usually met with in that of other birds. When 

 disturbed it escapes by a flight precipitate and awkward, 

 hides itself from our sight, and, were not its haunts 

 and habits known, we should never conjecture that this 

 bustling fugitive was our long-forgotten spring visitant 

 the wryneck. The winter or spring of 1818 was, from 

 some unknown cause, singularly unfavorable for this 

 bird. It generally arrives before the middle of April ; 

 and its vernal note, so unlike that of any of its com- 

 panions, announces its presence throughout all the mild 

 mornings of this month, and part of the following; but 

 during the spring of that year it was perfectly silent, or 

 absent from us. The season, it is true, was unusually 

 cheerless and ungenial. 



Some of our birds are annually diminishing in num- 

 bers ; others have been entirely destroyed, or no longer 

 visit the shores of Britain. The increase of our popu- 

 lation, inclosure, and clearage of rude and open places, 

 and the drainage of marshy lands, added to the noise 

 of our fire-arms, have driven them away, or rendered 

 their former breeding and feeding stations no longer 

 eligible to many, especially to the waders and aquatic 

 M2 





