46 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
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 a 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 to systematically set 
about its extermination. Doubtless that will come 
later on when it will be in the same category with 
the golden oriole, hoopoe, bittern, and other species 
that are regarded as always worth killing ; that 
is to say, it will come — the scramble for the 
wryneck's carcase — if nothing is done in the mean 
time to restrain the brutish 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 under- 
going some slow change, which tells on the migratory 
instinct, that it is becoming more a resident species 
in its winter home in Africa. But all conjectures 
