220 ZYGODACTYLES. 



stiffness of those of the wood-pecker, are mottled brown, 

 also bound with black. The bill is more pointed, and not 

 so strong as that of the wood-pecker. 



The wryneck builds in the holes of trees, after the same 

 manner as the wood-peckers ; but it does not, like them, 

 excavate a hole, though it enlarges, or otherwise adapts to 

 its purpose, a ready found one. It seeks for one fit for its 

 purposes, and then, almost without any preparation, deposits 

 its eggs, which are nine or ten in number ; so that, if it has 

 not so much labour to undergo in building as the wood- 

 pecker, it has a larger family to bring up. Neither its bill 

 nor its tail, indeed, fit it for performing the same labour as 

 the wood-peckers ; the former not having strength for pick- 

 ing, and the latter not being stiff enough for propping up 

 the bird, during a long labour. But the more flexible tail 

 suits better as an auxiliary in moving about on the bark. 



But the adaptation of the structure of the wryneck to its 

 habits, is not inferior to that of the wood-pecker, or indeed 

 of any other bird. Those warm, lowland, and, compared 

 with the north and west of the country, dry regions to 

 which it comes, abound with the minuter insects, especially 

 with aphides, and the smaller tribes of ants. These last are 

 continually careering about on the boles and branches of 

 the trees ; and it is to them especially that the attention 

 of the wryneck is directed, so much as to have merited 

 and obtained the provincial name of the " emmet hunter." 

 These ants the wryneck catches with the tongue, an organ 

 which it can protrude at least an inch, and retract again 

 with the rapidity of lightning, so that when the ants are 

 coursing about they are picked up, one by one, without the 

 capture producing any alarm, or even being noticed by the 

 rest. They are captured, not only on the stems of trees, 

 but on the ground, and they are even picked from their 

 dens and hills, especially at those times when they are 



