21 8 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



protruding from the mandibles, on both sides. It 

 is white, brilliantly white, and looks like a mash of 

 something. It reminds me of what I have seen 

 oozing or flowing from the bills of rooks, as they 

 left the nest after feeding their young — but even 

 whiter, it seemed, as the sun shone on it. Insects it 

 does not in the least resemble, except, by possibility, 

 a pulp of their white interiors. If so, however, it 

 must represent multitudes of them. But where are 

 the wings, legs, and crushed bodies } It is formless, 

 and seems to well out of the bill." On a subsequent 

 occasion, I saw the same outflow — *'a thick, milky 

 fluid,'* I this time describe it as — from the bill of 

 the female ; so that, principally through this, but, 

 also, because of many other little indications, such as 

 that working by the bird of its mandibles — as before 

 noticed — in leaving the nest, and an occasional little 

 gulp or less pronounced motion of the throatal 

 muscles, as though it were swallowing something 

 down, the head being at the same time raised, I 

 came to the conclusion that these woodpeckers feed 

 their young by some process of regurgitation. This 

 confirms an opinion which has long been gaining 

 ground with me, viz. that the green woodpecker is 

 now almost wholly an ant-eater. Here, at least, 

 where the country is open and sandy, and where, till 

 lately, there has been a great and happy dearth of 

 posts and palings, I believe that this is the case. I 

 have often watched the bird, in trees, and have seen 

 it give, now and again, a spear with the bill against 

 the trunk ; but this has never been continued for 

 long, and that eager and absorbed manner which a 

 bird has when actively feeding, has never, in my 



