Queries and Answers. 475 
The wryneck is the only species of the genus that visits this country, and 
forms an interesting link between the cuckoo and the woodpeckers, having 
the long flexible tail of the former, with the extensile tongue of the latter. 
They have two toes only projecting forwards, and two turned backwards, a 
construction of the feet which enables them to climb trees with facility, and 
sustain themselves in various positions on the surface of the bark while 
searching for insects. They are often seen on the ground near ant-hills, 
consuming, as food, large quantities of the ants and their larvee. 
Wrynecks are, with us, summer visitors only, preceding the cuckoo in the 
spring, and as their line of flight on departing in autumn is in a south- 
eastern direction, they probably, with many others of our summer visitors, 
pass the winter in Asia or Africa. The swift, the swallow, and one of our 
martens, have been seen at Sierra Leone, and the Island of St. Thomas, in 
the months of January and February. 
The anatomical construction of the tongue and its appendages in the wry- 
neck, and the consequent mode of taking its food, are beautiful adaptations 
of means to an end, and will amply repay the closest examination. By a 
peculiar elongation of the two lateral portions of the bones of the tongue, 
and the muscles attached to them, this bird is able to extend the tongue a 
very considerable distance beyond the point of his beak: the end of the 
tongue itself is horny, and consequently hard, but by no means pointed. 
A very large and long gland is situated at the under edge of the lower jaw 
on each side, which secretes a glutinous mucus, and transfers it to the 
inside of the mouth by a slender duct. With this glutinous mucus the 
end of the tongue is always covered, for the especial purpose of conveying 
food into the mouth by contact alone. I have frequently examined the 
contents of the stomach in the wryneck, but without finding any fracture 
or mutilation of the food from the action of the beak, unless the substance 
proved too large and heavy to be lifted by adhesion. So unerring is the 
aim with which the tongue is darted out, and so certain the effect of the 
adhesive moisture, that the bird never fails in obtaining its object at every 
attempt. So rapid, also, is the action of the tongue in thus conveying food 
into the mouth, that the eye is unable distinctly to follow it; and Montagu, 
who had an opportunity of observing this bird feed while confined in a 
cage, says, an ant’s egg, which is of a light colour, and more conspicuous 
than the tongue, had somewhat the appearance of moving towards the 
mouth by attraction, as a needle flies to a magnet. 
The woodpeckers take their food in the same manner, but with some 
specific modification in the structure of their tongues. — 8S. 7’. P. 
Whether, by destroying the Buds of Fruit Trees, Birds were, or were not, 
conferring an obligation, has long, I believe, been a disputed point amongst 
naturalists; whether those devoured by them were in a diseased state, 
and containing the larve of insects, or whether they were healthful, and 
likely to arrive in due season at maturity. Witnessing, a few springs since, 
the havoc made by a number of bullfinches, on two thriving young codlin 
trees, that for several years had blossomed and borne profusely, and had, 
at that time, every appearance of health, my curiosity was excited on this 
subject, and T then saw opened the crops of two of these depredators. 
They were wholly filled with the vegetable matter on which the birds had 
been. feeding, and which did not appear to contain insects of any kind. 
Since that time the codlin trees have never grown with so much vigour as 
they did previously, many branches being so entirely stripped of buds that 
they never recovered. This spring the trial was repeated, and when the 
trees were in a more advanced state, in fact, just as the leaves were begin- 
ning to expand, and the blossom buds to make their appearance. A culprit 
bullfinch was killed in the very act, an unswallowed morsel yet remaining 
in his bill, to bear witness against him. This was a single flower-bud, with 
it 2 
