360 
WRYNECK. 
supplied. This was seen by Montague, who 
kept a female in confinement, supplying it with 
ants for food. In the ant hills it is said to intro- 
duce the tongue into the hollow parts, thus 
rousing the community and bringing them within 
reach upon the surface. The eggs are laid in 
holes of trees on the rotten wood without lining. 
This has been the manner in which they have 
been, by most authors, considered to be deposited. 
But we find Mr Salmon giving an instance, 
where he pulled out the nest, composed of moss, 
feathers, &c. five times, taking in all twenty-two 
eggs from the birds. He, at the same time, 
however, states, that it may have been the old 
nest of the redstart on which the eggs had been 
deposited.* 
To describe this beautifully pencilled bird is 
almost impossible, the colours are so blended. 
Above, the general tint is of a yellowish gray, 
mottled with black and brown ; on the centre of 
the back the middle of the feathers is black, and 
the ground colour is of a browner tint ; this also 
covers the scapulars, where the feathers are 
tipped with a yellowish white, succeeded by a 
band of black ; the quills are brownish black, 
bordered with reddish wood brown ; the tail has 
four irregular bars of black, broadest at the shaft, 
and succeeded by pale mottled space on the one 
side, darker on the other, which gives the effect 
of three shades or bands ; the auriculars are pale 
Loudon’s Mag. vii. p. 465. 
