54 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



trunk, busy at its old fascinating occupation of 

 deftly picking off the running ants. 



It is melancholy to think that this quaint and 

 beautiful bird of a unique type has been growing 

 less and less common in our country during the last 

 half- century, or for a longer period. In the last 

 fifteen or twenty years the falling off has been very 

 marked. The declension is not attributable to 

 persecution in this case, since the bird is not on the 

 gamekeeper's black list, nor has it yet become so 

 rare as to cause the amateur collectors of dead birds 

 throughout the country systematically to set about 

 its extermination. Doubtless that will come later 

 on when it will be in the same category with the 

 golden oriole, hoopoe, fur?e-wren, and other species 

 that are regarded as always worth killing ; that 

 is to say, it will come — the scramble for the wry- 

 neck's carcase — if nothing is done in the meantime 

 to restrain the enthusiasm of those who value a 

 bird only when the spirit of life that gave it flight 

 and grace and beauty has been crushed out of it — 

 when it is no longer a bird. The cause of its decline 

 up till now cannot be known to us ; we can only say 

 in our ignorance that this type, like innumerable 

 others that have ceased to exist, has probably run 

 its course and is dying out. Or it might be imagined 

 that its system is undergoing some slow change, 

 which tells on the migratory instinct, that it is 



