GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 259 



the bird knows the location of the best sounding boards. The 

 call-note is a sharp quet, guet, and another quickly repeated 

 note is described, the alarm, chk, is heard when the bird is 

 disturbed, especially near the nest. 



In summer the food mainly consists of those insects which 

 bore into or otherwise damage the timber of forest trees — the 

 larvae of wood-boring moths and beetles, bark beetles and their 

 larvce. The accusation that Woodpeckers damage timber is 

 unfounded, since its borings are always in infected trees ; large 

 numbers of the destructive Rhagium beetles are devoured by 

 the Pied Woodpecker. The grub of Cy7iips is hacked out of 

 the marble-gall, and there is some evidence that these galls are 

 occasionally stored for winter consumption. I have seen the 

 bird hanging beneath a branch to pick the aphides from syca- 

 more leaves. It usually alights on the trunk, working upwards, 

 often from side to side, but sometimes will perch in passerine 

 fashion, when it sits well upright. During the ascent it smartly 

 taps the bark, breaking off fragments, but often extracts its 

 food from crevices with the tip of its sticky tongue. Its actions 

 are jerky, and it hops rather than climbs, even when beneath a 

 branch, leapijig forward with one foot just in advance of the 

 other. It will work round to the further side of a bole, often, 

 apparently, to avoid observation. Though less frequently seen 

 on the ground than the Green Woodpecker, it at times attacks 

 the nests of ants. In winter, when the bird wanders from its 

 breeding haunts, it will visit wood-piles and continue its hunt 

 for wood-infesting insects, but in autumn it occasionally takes 

 toll of fruit in garden and orchard. Beech-mast, acorns, nuts 

 and berries are eaten when insect food is scarce. When an 

 open space is crossed the flight is easy and undulating. 



The nesting hole, neat and round, is bored in soft or decaying 

 wood, horizontally for a few inches, then perpendicularly down- 

 wards ; at the bottom of a shaft, usually from six to twelve 

 inches in depth, a sm.all chamber is excavated, where on wood 



