346 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



barrels at full cock, but resting peacefully in the hollow of 

 his arm, canie up to ine. and, with the sagacity of his cloth, 

 and perhaps also with a distant jKospect of beer, entered on 

 a friendly interchange of sentiment, from which it appeared 

 that all birds were "vermin," and ought to be destroyed; 

 that the "eckul" was no better than the rest, and w;is a "sly 

 customer," getting round the tree to avoid the gun, and 

 sucking the eggs of pheasants whenever opportunity offered. 

 1 make no pretence of being able to remember the exact 

 words of the conversation, but I have faithfully given the 

 substance. I need not say that 1 lei't my new acquaintance 

 in full possession of his conviction that it was a meritorious 

 act to kill an " eckul" (Pica viridis). 



Fig. 3. 



Now it so happens that by an inscrutable instinct the 

 woodpecker is able to discover these mischievous larvae, 

 while perfectly concealed from human vision, deep in the 

 solid wood of oak or elm. He drills a sha])eless hole, seizes 

 the culprit in his powerful and pointed beak, and drags him 

 out, twlens iwlens. He would by this means, and solely in 

 order to gratify his own a]inetite, most willingly save hun- 

 dreds of thousands of pounds' worth of timber every year ; 

 but the proprietors in all timber countries pay their game- 



