306 SUMMER. 



which is most remote from its habitation on the con- 

 tinent. The local distribution of birds is a subject 

 worthy of attention, as it does not wholly depend 

 upon similarity in any of those circumstances with 

 which we are acquainted ; and yet as birds have so 

 much locomotive power, there must be something that 

 attracts them to the places where they are found. 



There is a very beautiful bird resembling the wood- 

 pecker in part of its structure and habits, that visits 

 the south of England in the summer mont 1 3 ; and 

 which, in those places which it visits, is as certain an 

 indication that the summer is come, as the cuckoo or 

 the swallow. It is not, however, so much a forest bird 

 as the woodpeckers, and though it has the same sort of 

 projectile tongue, it wants that form and power in the 

 tail by which they are enabled to support themselves 

 on trees. That bird is the wryneck (yunx torquilla) ; 

 which does not get its name from any natural crooked- 

 ness of the neck, but from the watchful motions of the 

 head, and the form that these give to a brownish black 

 bit which marks the upper part longitudinally from 

 the nape to the termination of the back. It is nearly 

 the size of the skylark, but the tail is longer, the body 

 rather more slender, and the expansion of the wings 

 rather less. The most remarkable thing in the wry- 

 neck is the delicately laboured nature of the markings, 

 which, though the colours are soft, are more finely 

 brought out than those of any other British bird, 

 whether seasonal or resident. The ground colours are 

 yellowish grey above, and yellowish white on the under 

 part, and having the upper part beautifully mottled 



