Little 
Bird Friends. 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
(123) 
all day. He is extremely conceited, 
and fancies that he is a first-rate singer. 
Instead of which his so-called singing is 
nothing but a most irritating noise. But 
I would not think of telling him so. He 
would be terribly offended, and would 
mind far less being told that he was 
stupid than that there was anything 
wrong with his voice. A great many of 
the brightly-coloured foreign birds have 
no song to speak of, our little brown- 
coated British birds far excelling them 
in the sweetness of their voices. 
Birthplace Unknown. 
“ Twiney ” can tell me nothing about 
his birthplace ; he cannot remember it at 
all. But I know that he came from 
Africa, and as most of the Weaver birds 
come from the North-Western parts, I 
expect that is where he was born. The 
stretch of country between the Gold 
Coast and the Rivers Senegal and 
Gambia is simply crowded with animal 
life. There are an enormous number of 
birds as well as lions, giraffes, monkeys 
of all kinds, and large herds of ante¬ 
lopes. It was in this neighbourhood 
that the gorilla was first seen. The 
province called Senegambia is now 
under British protection, and is in¬ 
habited by several negro tribes. The 
climate is very unhealthy; few English¬ 
men can live here for any length of 
time, and even the natives suffer very 
much from malaria. 
*i8T 
The Cuckoo’s Mate. 
This is one of the names by which the 
Wryneck is known, owing to its punctual 
arrival a few days before the popular 
harbinger of spring. Its note is an un¬ 
mistakable one, a quickly repeated 
“ Que-que-que ”; the bird’s presence is 
more frequently detected by its note, for 
owing to its brown plumage it is not 
easy of observation. It is closely re¬ 
lated to the Woodpecker, and though it 
lacks that bird’s brilliant plumage it 
possesses several other characteristics 
common to both, especially in internal 
structure; the tongue is long and flexible, 
the muscles, as in the Woodpecker, 
being coiled round the back of the skull, 
so that it can be instantaneously shot 
out at great length to gather up some 
insect lurking in the interstices of -the 
tree-bark. It nests on the bare wood of 
a hole in a tree, and does not easily 
desert its home when interfered with, for 
if all the eggs are taken it will continue 
to lay, and it has been known to lay no 
fewer than forty-two in the one nest. 
In this habit, which is unusual with 
birds, it resembles the Starling, so pro¬ 
lific in egg-laying. 
Nesting as Wrynecks do in the holes 
of trees, it is by no means difficult to 
catch the old bird on the nest, and when 
brought to bay in this manner it emits 
a loud hissing noise that has earned for 
it the name of Snake-bird, though this 
name may also have been given to i‘t 
in consequence of the extraordinary 
manner in which it can twist its neck 
about. In times of excitement, especi¬ 
ally when captured by the hand, it seems 
to be able to turn its head almost com¬ 
pletely round, thus justifying its name 
of “Writhe,” or “Wryneck.” Although 
one speaks of its general plumage as 
brown, it is by no means a plain bird, 
for in reality the shades are exquisite 
in their variety and delicacy, and one 
can only compare the plumage of the 
Wryneck with the delicate pencillings 
and variegation of the Woodcock or 
Nightjar. The Wryneck is usually met 
with in the South-Eastern counties, be¬ 
coming much rarer towards the West 
and North; but whether it is that our 
old trees are being gradually destroyed 
and the . fine old orchards becoming a 
thing of the past, certainly for some 
reason or other it does not visit our 
country in the numbers that it formerly 
did, and we may reckon it among those 
many species that are decreasing in 
England. It feeds almost entirely upon 
insect life, and is particularly partial to 
ants, deriving from this partiality the 
name of “ Emmet-hunter ” in some dis¬ 
tricts, while in the Pyrenees it is known 
as the “ Formigue,” and in Holland as 
“ Mierenjager,” for the same reason. 
