he has no thought nor remembrance of his former life and condition and
of his long-dead relations; but he still haunts the village where he
knows so well where to find the small ants, to pick them from off the
ant-hill and from the trunks of trees with his quick little claw-like
hands. Language and song are likewise forgotten with all human things,
all except his laugh; for when hunger is satisfied, and the sun shines
pleasantly as he reposes on the dry leaves on the ground or sits aloft
on a branch, at times a sudden feeling of gladness possesses him, and he
expresses it in that one way--the long, wild, ringing peal of laughter.
Listening to that strange sound, although I could not see I could yet
picture him, as, aware of my cautious approach, he moved shyly behind
the mossy trunk of some tree and waited silently for me to pass. A lean,
grey little man, clad in a quaintly barred and mottled mantle, woven by
his own hands from some soft silky material, and a close-fitting brown
peaked cap on his head with one barred feather in it for ornament, and a
small wizened grey face with a thin sharp nose, puckered lips, and a
pair of round, brilliant, startled eyes.

So distinct was this image to my mind's eye that it became unnecessary
for me to see the creature, and I ceased to look for him; then all at
once came disillusion, when one day, hearing the familiar high-pitched
laugh with its penetrating and somewhat nasal tone, I looked and beheld
the thing that had laughed just leaving its perch on a branch near the
ground and winging its way across the field. It was only a bird after
all--only the wryneck; and that mysterious faculty I spoke of, saying
that we all of us possessed something of it (meaning only some of us)
was nothing after all but the old common faculty of imagination.

Later on I saw it again on half-a-dozen occasions, but never succeeded
in getting what I call a satisfying sight of it, perched woodpecker-wise