164 A Day in the Cork Woods 
on meeting with a stone or hard stratum which bars the way they 
abandon the task and try afresh elsewhere. Again, some nests 
are placed in a chamber mid-way down a burrow and not at the 
end. A few weeks after the Bee-eaters have settled down to their 
nesting stations their long, sharp-pointed bills are worn down 
considerably from constant work at excavating their burrows. 
Very favourite nesting stations for Bee-eaters are the sandy banks 
of rivers and other natural cuttings in the open country. 
The cork-oak tree is unquestionably a very picturesque object, 
and the ravages made on it by removing the externai bark every 
seventh year in a way add to the beauty of the vistas seen 
through the woods. For the trunks, bereft of the cork, are of 
the richest chocolate red, and the effect of the sunlight and shadow 
playing through the leafy canopy on the dark rugged stems, dotted 
here and there amid the brilliant golden blossoms and green foliage 
of genista and high bracken, is a joy for ever. It is curious how 
deep and chequered are the shadows cast by these trees, and 
how hard it often is to discern either man or beast moving through 
the scrub below them. 
A native wearing the favourite dark brown chocolate jacket, 
standing leaning on his long stick, as is their habit, assimilates so 
perfectly with the surroundings as to make one start on suddenly 
becoming aware of his proximity. 1 have always thought that 
the chocolate brown uniform worn by the Portuguese Cagadores 
in the Light Division during the Peninsular War was probably 
chosen for this reason of its invisibility in wooded and broken 
country. The trunks of the larger cork trees, above where the 
cork has been removed, are usually covered with mosses and _hare’s- 
foot fern, and make a very beautiful spectacle. 
Of the flowers and flowering shrubs met with in the cork 
forests, together with the butterflies and teeming insect-life, I can 
only say, go and see them in April and May. 
