220 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



and desultory nature of any further foraging opera- 

 tions, which they may carry on amongst the trees, is 

 amply accounted for. The bird is full of ants, 

 which it has been swallowing wholesale, without any 

 effort of searching. It cannot still be hungry, and, 

 when it is, it will repair to those Elysian fields again. 

 The tree, in fact, is now used more as a resting-place 

 than for any other purpose, except that of breeding ; 

 and thus this species, with its marvellous tongue, 

 specially adapted for extracting insects from chinks 

 in the bark of trees, is on the road to becoming as 

 salient an instance of changed habits, as is Darwin's 

 ground-feeding woodpecker, in the open plains of 

 La Plata. Sure I am that here, at any rate, the green 

 woodpecker feeds, almost wholly, upon ants, but if 

 there be a doubt on the matter, ought not the 

 contents of the excrements to decide it ? I have 

 examined numbers of these, which were picked up 

 by me both in the open and at the foot of trees, and, 

 in every case, the long narrow sac, of which the outer 

 part consists, was filled, entirely, with the remains 

 of ants. These I have turned out upon a sheet of 

 white paper, and examined under a magnifying 

 glass, but I have never been able to find the smallest 

 part or particle of any other insect. This has sur- 

 prised me, indeed, nor is it quite in accordance with 

 the contents of other excrements which I have 

 looked at in other parts of the country — for in- 

 stance in Dorsetshire. There, the shards of a small 

 beetle were sometimes mixed, in a small proportion, 

 with the remains of the ants, and, once or twice, 

 these formed the bulk of the excrement. These 

 shards, however, seemed to me to be those of a 



