i'"^ British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



blackish and boldly marked internally by clear spots of the ground-colour, bounded in 

 front by black anchor-shaped markings ; the primaries have the inner webs smoky 

 black ; more or less flecked with dull tawny or sandy buff, the outer web regularly 

 barred with tawny and black alternately ; the tail is ashy brownish, reticulated or 

 mottled with black and barred with black and bufif ; the tinder parts are pale buif, the 

 feathers with a narrow subterminal black bar ; the male with throat and breast washed 

 mth tawny ; the bill and feet are horn-brown ; iris dark brown. In addition to its 

 duller and paler colouring both above and below, whiter flanks and centre of abdomen, 

 its much inferior size and considerably shorter and weaker bill readily distinguish the 

 female. The young chiefly differ in the more heavily barred under parts. 



Owing to the resemblance in colouring which the plumage of this bird exhibits 

 to the lichen-covered bark of trees, it is doubtless frequently overlooked ; yet it 

 is less a bird of the woods than the true Woodpeckers, and therefore one might 

 have expected to see it more often than one does, but doubtless its extreme shy- 

 ness has much to do with it. Its favourite haunt appears to be an old orchard 

 where decayed and lichen-covered trees abound, and here one may sometimes see 

 it passing with wild, uncertain flight from one tree-trunk to another. After 

 alighting it stretches its neck and twists its head about from side to side in the 

 peculiar manner which has probably earned it the title of ' Snake-bird.' Some- 

 times in shuffling up the tree it uses its soft tail as a support after the fashion 

 of a Woodpecker, but at other times it is held clear of the trunk. 



In addition to orchards, the Wryneck may be met with in gardens, planta- 

 tions, tall hedgerows, and parks or even on open commons. When on the ground 

 the Wryneck hops somewhat irregularly, its tail and sometimes its wings being 

 used, the former being jerked laterally. 



Unlike the Woodpeckers, the Wryneck never excavates a hole for the reception 

 of its eggs, but utilizes one already existing, usually in the trunk of a tree, and 

 whether the cavity be deep or shallow seems to be immaterial to this bird.* 

 Sometimes, as I proved in 1887, a hole in an earth-cutting is taken possession of. 

 No nest is formed ; the eggs, five to ten in number, are deposited upon the rotten 

 wood or crumbled earth at the bottom of the hole. In colour they are pure 

 shining white, with a rosy tinge when freshly deposited, the yolk showing 

 through the thin though hard shell. 



In 1872 Mr. Frank Norgate took forty-two eggs from one nest of this bird 



* Mr. W. Ruskin Butterfield, writing from St. Leonard's, says : — " A rather unusual site is resorted to in 

 this neighbourhood b^' a pair of Wrynecks for breeding purposes. As sometimes happens, the larger part of a 

 tree has been broken off by the wind so as to leave a stump about a yard high ; and this by some means has 

 been bored vertically almost the whole of its length, so that the chips upon which the eggs lie are less than 

 a foot above the ground." Mr. Butterfield also confirms my obser\-ations as to its mode of flight. 



