THE WRYNECK. 17 
Family—PICIDZE. Subfamily—IVNGINE. 
THE WRYNECK. 
Lynx torquilla, LINN. 
REEDS throughout 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 Western 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 says:—‘‘It is a 
regular spring-visitor to England, sometimes arriving in the south by 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 by it of late years, 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 known to wander as far north as 
Caithness, the Orkneys, and the Shetlands; also to the Feroes. In Ireland it was 
taken in co. Waterford in the summer of 1878, and on the Arran Islands, off Galway 
Bay, on October 6th, 1866. By the latter part of September it has usually left 
England for the south, but Mr. A. H. Upcher asserts that he saw and heard one in 
Norfolk on January 1st, 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 with black in the male, tipped with pale sandy brown and 
narrowly barred with 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 tawny, of the female sandy brown, finely reticulated with 
