THE WRYNECK. 19 
in an old stump; it being known that if the eggs are removed the Wryneck 
continues to lay. In 1873 he repeated the action, but in 1874 the poor thing 
appears to have been so weakened by the strain on her reproductive powers that 
only one egg was deposited, and after that year she was seen no more. ‘To 
my mind for a man persistently to rob a bird of every egg through two 
successive seasons seems bad enough, even if his object was to prove the 
productiveness of the species, but I cannot understand how he could have the 
hardihood to make his action public.* 
The Wryneck is a very close sitter when once its clutch is complete, and 
whilst the young are only partly feathered the female only goes off the nest 
when the male bird relieves her; thus it is no uncommon thing for one or 
other of the old birds to be caught upon the nest by the egg-collector, when it 
hisses like a snake, pecks at his fingers and finally feigns death. After leaving 
the nest the young accompany their parents and are fed by them for a time. 
Nidification takes place from the middle of May to the middle of June; or, if 
the bird has been disturbed, sometimes a little later. The egg figured is from 
my collection. 
Towards the end of June, 1880, I noticed a Wryneck examining a decayed 
apple-tree in an orchard at Bobbing in Kent. One of the holes in this tree had 
been occupied the previous year by a Robin, the remains of whose nest still lay 
at the bottom of the cavity. Previously I had not taken the eggs of the 
Wryneck and therefore I was interested in more senses than one. Watching 
the bird through my glasses I was convinced that it had decided to take possession 
of the Robin’s old nest; but, as I was returning to town in a day or two, I 
knew I could not myself take the eggs, so I called the son of the man who 
rented the orchard, and promised him a shilling to send me the complete clutch. 
A little more than a week later I received five eggs which were all that were 
deposited. 
After this I did not again meet with the Wryneck until 1887, when on 
July 9th I was examining the mole-burrows, Sand-Martin’s holes, &c., in a large 
brick-earth cutting on Mr. Drake’s property at Kemsley, in Kent, on the chance 
of finding a late nest, when as I passed a small hole I heard a sound not unlike 
that produced by shaking a number of small silver coins between the palms of 
one’s hands. Taking out a large knife I set to work to enlarge the hole, and 
after half-an-hour’s hard work was able to insert my hand, when I felt the soft 
* When one considers that the Wryneck is single-brooded, and that seven to eight eggs represent a fair 
average clutch, some idea of the strain put upon the bird by compelling it to lay at least five times that number 
of eggs may be obtained: on no grounds can such a proceeding be justified. 
