I leave it to anatomists to determine whether wrynecks are woodpeckers that are turning into other birds, or other birds that are changing into woodpeckers. Certain it is that they are closely allied to woodpeckers.
Only four species of wryneck are known to exist, and, of these, three are confined to the Dark Continent, while the fourth is a great traveller. It is the bird which is frequently seen in India during the winter, and is well known in England as the “cuckoo’s mate,” because it migrates every year to Great Britain at the same time as the cuckoo. Ornithologists call this bird _Iynx torquilla_, plain Englishmen usually term it the wryneck, as though there were only one species in the world. From their insular point of view they are quite right because it is the only wryneck they ever see unless they leave their island. One convenience of living in a country, like England, poor in species, is that to particularise a bird is rarely necessary; it is sufficient to speak of the cuckoo, the swallow, the kingfisher, the heron. On the other hand, we who dwell in this country of many species, if we would not be misunderstood, usually have to particularise the cuckoo, the kingfisher, or the swallow of which we are speaking. However, as regards wrynecks, India is no better off than England. One species only visits that country; hence Indians may indulge in the luxury of speaking of it as the wryneck. This is a bird not much larger than a sparrow and attired as plainly as the hen of that species. But here the resemblance ends. The wryneck is as retiring in disposition as the sparrow is obtrusive. I defy any one to dwell a week in a locality that boasts of a pair of sparrows without noticing them, but many a man spends the greater part of his life in India without once observing a wryneck. The greyish-brown plumage of the wryneck, delicately mottled and barred all over with a darker shade of brown, harmonises very closely with the trunks of trees or the bare earth on which it spends so much of its time, and thus it often eludes observation.
The wryneck, like its cousins the woodpeckers, feeds almost exclusively on insects which it secures by means of the tongue. This wormlike structure is several inches in length and is hard and sharp, barbed at the tip and covered elsewhere with very sticky saliva. It can be shot out suddenly to transfix the bird’s quarry, and then as rapidly retracted. The tongue is so long that when retracted it coils up inside the head. Although wrynecks feed a good deal on trees, they are far less addicted to them than woodpeckers are. The latter sometimes feed upon the ground, but this is the exception rather than the rule, while with the wryneck the reverse holds good. Once, at Lahore, I nearly trod upon a wryneck that was feeding on the ground. It flew from between my boots to a low bush hard by; then it descended to the ground and began to feed in the grass. I crept towards the place where it was feeding, and it did not again take to its wings until I was close up to it. This time it flew to a branch of a tree about ten feet above the level of the ground. I again followed up the wryneck. This time it allowed me to walk right up under it, and study the dark cross-bars on its tail feathers. After a little time it betook itself to a bunker on the golf links, from off which it began to pick insects. Then it flew to a low bush, and from thence dropped to the ground. I again followed it up, and, as I approached, it quietly walked away. Other naturalists have found the wryneck in India equally tame. Mr. Blyth says of it: “Instinctively trusting to the close resemblance of its tints to the situations on which it alights, it will lie close and sometimes even suffer itself to be taken by the hand; on such occasions it will twirl its neck in the most extraordinary manner, rolling the eyes, and erecting the feathers of the crown and throat, occasionally raising its tail and performing the most ludicrous movements; then, taking advantage of the surprise of the spectator, it will suddenly dart off like an arrow.”