“The wryneck is closely akin to the woodpeckers in the structure of its feet, whose four toes or talons are divided into two pairs, one pointing forward and the other backward, and in its very long and viscous tongue which it pushes into ant-hills or stretches out on the ground to receive the insects as they pass. It is a small bird, being no larger than a lark. Its plumage is watered with black, brown, gray, and russet, somewhat like the woodcock’s, but with tints better defined and more beautiful in their combined effect. The wryneck is a great eater of caterpillars, and it is also passionately fond of ants, which it catches as does the woodpecker, with its sticky tongue laid on the ground across their path. Its name comes from the habit it has of twisting its neck and looking backward with a sort of slow and undulating movement like a snake’s.” “Why does it imitate a snake like that?” Emile inquired. “It is its way of expressing surprise and alarm; and perhaps it also hopes to frighten its foe with the motions. At any rate, it is sometimes successful. If a birdnest-hunter climbs up to its hole to steal its little ones, the wryneck emits, from the depths of its retreat, a sharp hissing and begins to make snake-like movements with its neck. The young birds, still featherless, imitate their mother to the best of their ability, and succeed so well that the hunter thinks he has thrust his hand into a nest of writhing and twisting flat-headed vipers. Thoroughly frightened, the boy clambers down, not without leaving some shreds of his breeches on the way.” “Serves the rascal right, too,” declared Emile. “The wryneck reaches us in April and leaves toward the end of summer. It haunts the outskirts of woods and visits gardens and orchards for caterpillars. It nests in a hole in a tree trunk and gladly avails itself of the woodpecker’s abandoned quarters after furbishing them up a little to suit itself. The eggs, which are white and polished like the woodpecker’s, rest on a simple little bed of wood-dust that the bird dislodges from the walls of its hole with a few blows of its beak. “Despite the structure of its feet, the wryneck does not climb tree trunks and rarely even perches on them, preferring to stay on the ground and hunt caterpillars or stretch out its tongue in the ants’ path, which has given it, in the South, the name of stretch-tongue.