I 8 ALLEN’S naturalist’s LI HR ARY. j 
bourhood of London regularly on migration, and is heard every 
spring in my own garden at Chiswick. It even nests in the 
western suburbs, and, by constant care in driving off the 
hostile Starling, TIr. Giinther has succeeded in protecting the 
IVi-ynecks in his garden at Kew, to whicli tlie birds returned 
for several years in succession. Like its relations, the Wood- 
peckers, tlie Wryneck is a very shy bird, and its peculiar note 
is the chief indication of its jiresence in the neighbourhood. ' 
It is met with in all kinds of situations, but is most commonly 
seen in orchards and iiark-lands, and it frequents the vicinity 
of habitations in a much more familiar degree than do any of i 
the ^Voodpeckers ; so that it will not disdain to accept the ^ 
accommodation of nesting-boxes put up in the trees for its 
especial benefit. 
Although a true member of the Family Piddm, by reason of 
the structure of its foot and its extensile tongue, the Wryneck 
is not given to climb trees in the same way as the above men- 
tioned birds, as its soft-plumaged tail would be of no service to ' 
it in climbing, and it is therefore often to be seen perched on . 
a branch like an ordinary Passerine bird, while it not unfre- 
quently visits the ground. On occasion, however, it runs up 
a tree exactly like any true Woodpecker, and I once shot a 
Wryneck as it was climbing up the woodwork of the Great , 
Western Railway bridge at bourne End on the Thames. 
The food of the Wryneck consists entirely of insects, and 
ants and their eggs constitute its favourite food. Although, 
from its feeding so much on the ground, it accumulates, in a 
state of nature, a considerable amount of grit into its stomach, 
I have found young Wrynecks very difficult to rear, since after 
a time, the rape seed and soaked bread, which suits them so 
well for a time, ultimately irritates their tongue to such an ex- 
tent as to produce inflammation, and I have always had to let 
my pretty pets fly, that they might find their proper food for 
themselves in the woods. 
The name of “ Sn.ake-Bird,” often applied to the present 
species, is supposed to be derived from the curious way ii’ 
which a wounded or captured bird writhes and twists its long 
neck about, while the darting out of the tongue has doubtless 
had something to do with the idea of a snake. 
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