United States or Israel ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In the second case are the larger varieties of the woodpecker, including the well-known great black woodpecker of Europe; the North American red-headed woodpecker, and the South American yellow-crested variety; the Carolina woodpecker; and the Cayenne woodpecker. The third case contains the African and American ground woodpeckers; and the Wrynecks of Africa, Europe, and India.
This last summer, however , I saw very few Wrynecks only four or five during the whole of the two months I was in the Islands, and hardly heard them at all. It is included in Professor Ansted's list, but only marked as occurring in Guernsey and Sark. There are two specimens in the Museum. HOOPOE. Upupa Epops, Linnaeus. French, "La Huppé," "Huppé ordinaire."
The chief food of the wrynecks consists of ants, which they pick up with their delicately tapered tongues. The three last cases devoted to perching birds, are occupied by the varieties of the Cuckoo family.
Each pair carried or led a pair of wild animals, captives of the conquering might of Beauty. Foremost were borne, on the wrists of the actors, the birds especially sacred to the goddess doves and sparrows, wrynecks and swallows; and a pair of gigantic Indian tortoises, each ridden by a lovely nymph, showed that Orestes had not forgotten one wish, at least, of his intended bride.
Its numbers, however, vary considerably in different years, as in some summers I have seen Wrynecks in almost every garden, hedgerow, or thick bush in the Island; always when perched, sitting across the branches or twigs, on which they were perched, and never longways or climbing, as would be the case with a Woodpecker or Creeper; and the noise made by the birds during the breeding-season, was, in some years, incessant; this was particularly the case in the early part of the summer of 1866, when the birds were very numerous, and the noise made was so great that on one occasion I was told that the Mackerel Birds seriously interrupted a scientific game of Croquet, which was going on at Fort George, by the noise they made; I can quite believe it, as, though I was not playing in the game, I heard the birds very noisy in other parts of the Island.
I kicked up a partridge along this track two days ago. Those wrynecks, by the way, are abundant but hard to see. They sit close, relying on their protective colour. And it is the same with the tree-creepers. I have heard Englishmen say there are no tree-creepers in Italy. Mouse-like in hue, in movement and voice a strange case of analogous variation....
Word Of The Day