BIRDS OF WOODLAND AND HEDGEROW. 179 



hiding bower close by^ my brother was recently 

 enabled to secure the brace of illustrations on 

 pp. 177 and 178 of a green woodpecker about to 

 enter her home, and peeping out with an ex- 

 pression of anxious enquiry plainly depicted on 

 her countenance. 



Not long ago, whilst seated beneath a decaying 

 ash-tree, watching an industrious wryneck feed 

 her family of lusty appetited chicks scattered 

 amongst the lower, and yet living, branches, an 

 old woodpecker of the above species arrived with 

 a young one amongst the upper dead limbs. 

 Their behaviour was both curious and interesting. 

 The old bird jerked her way up one side of a 

 branch, hammering and searching, whilst the 

 young one kept parallel on the other, with an 

 ever-ready mouth held round the side to receive 

 any lurking trifle that its parent might secure. 



The nightingale is justly the greatest favourite 

 of all the feathered vocalists that throng the 

 grove. He sings as much by day as he does by 

 night, although comparatively few people seem 

 to be aware of the fact, and makes a model hus- 

 band, dropping the frivolities of song, and helping 

 his wife with a will to feed the chicks as soon as 

 they are hatched. 



Towards midnight on the seventh day of May, 

 1902, we had a thick white fog in Caterham 

 Valley (where I live), yet, in spite of that de- 



