472 PICID^. 



said in the account to be given of the next species.* No 

 fissure is needed for the production of this amazing sound, 

 which is made by the bird rapidly hammering with its beak on 

 the surface of the wood. It has also been generally accepted 

 that the intent of this hammering was to alarm the insects 

 that infest the branch and induce them to quit their recesses ; 

 but, as in so many other cases, when we try to assign an 

 object to any particular act of an animal, we are apt to 

 confound conjecture with observation, and this interpretation 

 seems to be unsupported by direct evidence. The fact that 

 the extraordinary reverberation is most often heard in spring 

 points to its being in place of a vocal call-note, and connected 

 with the business of reproduction. Montagu says that, on 

 putting a hen-bird of this species off her nest, she flew to a 

 branch near by, and there began her jarring noise, which 

 was soon answered by her mate from a distant part of the 

 wood. Others who have visited nests of this Woodpecker 

 could supply similar testimony, and it is certainly not ac- 

 cording to the habit of most birds that at such an agitating 

 moment they should busy themselves with a performance 

 having for its sole object the procuring of food. 



This bird makes its nest in trees, sometimes hacking for 

 itself a hole with a circular entrance, after the fashion of the 

 Green Woodpecker, but, as might be expected, smaller in 

 diameter ; though it not unfrequently occupies, and that 

 year after year, a naturally-formed cavity in a dead branch, 

 generally however deepening and prolonging it. The eggs 

 are laid on the bare wood or on such fine chips as may 

 chance to be left at the bottom, and are from five to seven 

 in number, of a pure whitef , glossy and translucent, mea- 

 suring from 1-09 to '94 by from '76 to '69 in. Both parents 

 take part in incubation, and the hen especially sits so close 

 as frequently to render herself liable to capture. The young 

 are hatched towards the end of May or beginning of June, 

 and can shift for themselves in a few weeks. Taken from 



* See the editorial note in Pennant's 'Br. Zool.' Ed. 1812, i. p. 321. 

 t Stained eggs are occasionally found as in the case of the Green Woodpecker 

 already mentioned (page 459, note). 



