Alfred Newton

“ The wryneck commonly lays its translucent white eggs on the bare wood of a hole in a tree, and is one of the few wild birds that can be induced to go on laying by abstracting its eggs day after day, and thus upwards of forty have been taken from a single hole—but the proper complement is from six to ten. ”

“ As regards Britain, the bird is most common in the S.E., its numbers decreasing rapidly towards the W. and N., so that in Cornwall and Wales and beyond Cheshire and Yorkshire its occurrence is but rare, while it appears only by accident in Scotland and Ireland. ”