The wryneck (jynx torquilla) visits us annually, but in very uncertain numbers, and, from some unknown cause, or local changes, in yearly diminishing quantities. In one short season after its arrival we hear its singular monotonous note at intervals through half the day. This ceases, and we think no more about it, as it continues perfectly mute; not a twit or a chirp escapes to remind us of its presence during all the remainder of its sojourn with us, except the maternal note or hush of danger, which is a faint, low, protracted hissing, as the female sits clinging by the side or on the stump of a tree. Shy and unusually timid, as if all its life were spent in the deepest retirement away from man, it remains through the day on some ditch-bank, or basks with seeming enjoyment, in any sunny hour, on the ant-hills nearest to its retreat; and these it depopulates for food, by means of its long glutinous tongue, which with the insects collects much of the soil of the heaps, as we find a much larger portion of grit in its stomach than is usually met with in that of other birds. When disturbed it escapes by a flight precipitate and awkward, hides itself from our sight, and, were not its haunts and habits known, we should never conjecture that this bustling fugitive was our long-forgotten spring visitant the wryneck. The winter or spring of 1818 was, from some unknown cause, singularly unfavorable for this bird. It generally arrives before the middle of April; and its vernal note, so unlike that of any of its companions, announces its presence throughout all the mild mornings of this month, and part of the following; but during the spring of that year it was perfectly silent, or absent from us. The season, it is true, was unusually cheerless and ungenial.