TnK Wryneck. 17 



Faviily—PICID/E. Subfamily- 1 YNfUN/fi. 



Thk Wryxkck. 



lynx /orf/nil/a, Lixx. 



BREEDS througliout the greater part of Europe, though sparingly in the 

 extreme south, where, however, a few appear to winter ; northward it occurs 

 in summer up to lat. 64° in Scandinavia and Western Russia, though not so far north 

 in Eastern Russia. Its range in Asia is very extensive: it breeds in VVesteni Siberia 

 northwards to lat. 60" and eastwards to Kamtschatka, southwards to the Altai 

 Mountains ; it also breeds in Japan, where it is common ; passes through North China 

 and Afghanistan on migration, winters in South China, Burma, and India ; it breeds 

 in the Himalayas and throughout Turkestan. In Africa it is believed to be resident 

 in Algeria, passes through Egypt on migration, and is said to winter to the south of 

 Abyssinia. 



Of its distribution in the British Isles Howard Saunders sa5's : — " It is a 

 regular spring-visitor to England, sometimes arriving in the south bj' the middle of 

 March, though usually about the first half of April ; for this reason it is often called 

 ' Cuckoo's mate ' or ' leader ' : names which have their equivalent in several European 

 languages. In the south-eastern counties it is more numerous than in the west, and 

 it is rare in Wales ; Lancashire has seldom been visited bj^ it of late 5-ears, and to 

 Cumberland it is now merely a straggler ; in Yorkshire and Durham it is very local, 

 and it becomes rare in Northumberland. Statements that it has nested in Scotland 

 require confirmation, but at intervals it has been kno\\Ti to wander as far north as 

 Caithness, the Orkneys, and the Shetlands ; also to the Faeroes. In Ireland it was 

 taken in co. Waterford in the summer of 1878, and on the Arran Islands, oflf Galwaj- 

 Bay, on October 6th, 1866. By the latter part of September it has usualh- left 

 England for the south, but Mr. A. H. Upcher asserts that he saw and heard one in 

 Norfolk on Januai-y ist, 1884." (Manual Brit. Birds, p. 261.) 



The upper parts of the Wryneck are pale ashy-grey, all the feathers tipped with 

 rufous brown and barred Avith black in the male, tipped with pale sandy brown and 

 narrowly barred Avith black in the female, the back in both sexes, and the nape and 

 scapulars in the male, streaked with black : centre of back washed with brown ; the 

 wings of the male are dull tawnj-, of the female sandy brown, finely reticulated with 



