THE WRYNECK. 
137 
The wryneck (jynx torquilla) visits us annually, but 
in very uncertain numbers, and, from some unknown 
cause, or local changes, in yearly diminishing quantities. 
In one short season after its arrival we hear its singular 
monotonous note at intervals through half the day. 
This ceases, and we think no more about it, as it con- 
tinues perfectly mute ; not a twit or a chirp escapes to 
remind us of its presence during all the remainder of 
its sojourn with us, except the maternal note or hush 
of danger, which is a faint, low, protracted hissing, as 
the female sits clinging by the side or on the stump of 
a tree. Shy and unusually timid, as if all its life were 
spent in the deepest retirement away from man, it re- 
mains through the day on some ditch bank, or basks 
with seeming enjoyment, in any sunny hour, on the 
ant-hills nearest to its retreat ; and these it depopulates 
for food, by means of its long glutinous tongue, which 
with the insects collects much of the soil of the heaps, 
as we find a much larger portion of grit in its stomach 
than is usually met with in that of other birds. When 
disturbed it escapes by a flight precipitate and awkward, 
hides itself from our sight, and, were not its haunts 
and habits known, we should never conjecture that this 
bustling fugitive was our long- forgotten spring visitant 
the wryneck. The winter or spring of 1818 was, from 
some unknown cause, singularly unfavorable for this 
bird. It generally arrives before the middle of April ; 
and its vernal note, so unlike that of any of its com- 
panions, announces its presence throughout all the mild 
mornings of this month, and part of the following; but 
during the spring of that year it was perfectly silent, or 
absent from us. The season, it is true, was unusually 
cheerless and ungenial. 
Some of our birds are annually diminishing in num- 
bers ; others have been entirely destroyed, or no longer 
visit the shores of Britain. The increase of our popu- 
lation, inclosure, and clearage of rude and open places, 
and the drainage of marshy lands, added to the noise 
of our fire-arms, have driven them away, or rendered 
their former breeding and feeding stations no longer 
eligible to many, especially to the waders and aquatic 
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