THE WRYNECK 13 1 



Sub-Family IYNGINiE 

 THE WRYNECK 



IYNX TORQUILLA 



Upper plumage reddish grey, irregularly spotted and lined with brown and 

 black ; a broad black and brown band from the back of the head to the 

 back ; throat and breast yellowish red, with dusky transverse rays ; 

 rest of the under plumage whitish, with arrow shaped black spots ; outer 

 web of the quills marked with rectangular alternate black and yellowish 

 red spots ; tail-feathers barred with black zigzag bands ; beak and feet 

 olive brown. Length six inches and a half ; breadth eleven inches. Eggs 

 glossy white. 



The note of the Wryneck is so peculiar that it can be confounded 

 with none of the natural sounds of the country ; a loud, rapid, harsh 

 cry of pay-pay-pay from a bird about the size of a lark may be 

 referred without hesitation to the Wryneck. Yet it is a pleasant 

 sound after all — ' the merry pee-bird ' a poet calls it — and the 

 untuneful minstrel is the same bird which is known by the name 

 of ' Cuckoo's Mate ', and so is associated with May-days, pleasant 

 jaunts into the country, hay fields, the memory of past happy days 

 and the hope of others to come. This name it derives not from any 

 fondness it exhibits for the society of the cuckoo, as it is a bird of 

 remarkably solitary habits, but because it arrives generally a few 

 days before the cuckoo. Not less singular than its note is its plum- 

 age, which, though unmarked by gaudiness of colouring, is very 

 beautiful, being richly embroidered as it were with brown and black 

 on a reddish grey ground. In habits, it bears no marked resemblance 

 to the Woodpeckers ; it is not much given to climbing and never taps 

 the trunks of trees ; yet it does seek its food on decayed trees, and em- 

 ploys its long horny tongue in securing insects. It darts its tongue 

 with inconceivable rapidity into an ant-hill and brings it out as 

 rapidly, with the insects and their eggs adhering to its viscid point. 

 These constitute its principal food, so that it is seen more frequently 

 feeding on the ground than hunting on trees. But by far the strangest 

 peculiarity of the Wryneck, stranger than its note and even than 

 its worm-like tongue, is the wondrous pliancy of its neck, which 

 one might almost imagine to be furnished with a ball and socket 

 joint. A country boy who had caught one of these birds on its 

 nest brought it to me on a speculation. As he held it in his hand, 

 I raised my finger towards it as if about to touch its beak. The 

 bird watched most eagerly the movement of my finger, with no 

 semblance of fear, but rather with an apparent intention of resenting 

 the offer of any injury. I moved my finger to the left ; its beak 

 followed the direction — the finger was now over its back, still the 

 beak pointed to it. In short, as a magnetic needle follows a piece 

 of steel, so the bird's beak followed my finger until it was again in 

 front, the structure of the neck being such as to allow the head 



