as soon as you hear the Yaftle’s laughing note you may be sure the sap is rightly astir, and 
that presently the grove will be dim with new greenery. The jay, harshly garrulous at other 
times, falls cunningly silent in the nesting season, but the Yaffle cannot hold his tongue in 
the honeymoon. 
This is one of those pretty birds that run heavy risks by reason of their gay plumage. 
His sage-green mantle, flaming crest, yellow back, and chequered tail-coverts have brought 
him into great request with the “ plume ” trade, which our gentle ladies, by their passive 
obedience to despotic milliners, so deplorably encourage. There are signs, however—welcome 
signs—that in proportion as they are becoming better informed of the nature and effects of © 
this trade, so lady customers are showing discrimination and forbearance in the matter of 
hat and bonnet decoration. This is no more than might have been reasonably expected, for 
nobody believed that Englishwomen would consciously encourage cruelty. 
Men who understand country matters as a rule look favourably on Woodpeckers of all 
sorts at the present time. But it was not always so. A generation ago these beneficent 
birds were classed as vermin. There are few, if any, English manors where the register of game 
and vermin has been kept for so many years as at Lord Malmesbury’s beautiful place, Heron 
Court, near Christchurch. There are some mournful entries in the lists of vermin destroyed 
by the keepers on this estate during a single year, 1852—the only year of which I 
possess the record. Among them figure no less than fifty Woodpeckers, owing, no doubt, to 
the same groundless suspicion that caused the destruction during the same period of two 
hundred and fifty hedgehogs—namely, that they devoured the eggs of game. The hedgehog, 
alas! still figures in the black list of most gamekeepers, but few are so ignorant now as to 
molest the Yaffle. 
Indeed, there is hardly any bird which by reason of its insatiable activity in the pursuit 
of insects hurtful to vegetation better deserves protection at the hand of man; and let it not 
be forgotten that insects, taken as a whole, have been pronounced to be the most successful 
of all forms of life. As it is, they far outnumber all the land animals of the world, and it is 
only because one-half of this mighty host preys on the other half, and that the majority of 
birds, fish, and reptiles, as well as many beasts, live on them, that insects have not 
multiplied to the exclusion of all other animals from the globe. It is, therefore, no unim- 
portant function that a purely insectivorous bird like the Woodpecker discharges in the 
scheme of nature. 
Luckily, all the Woodpeckers are very wary in their habits, seldom offering a chance to 
the mischievous hedge-popper, and requiring to be approached stealthily even by the 
friendly observer of their movements; so that in those parts of Great Britain where woodland 
has never completely disappeared they are still fairly plentiful. In Scotland it is otherwise. 
That country was entirely stripped of its ancient forests, and with the forests disappeared 
much of the sylvan fauna. The Green Woodpecker is unknown there, though there seems no 
reason why it should not be restored now that there are such extensive plantations. The 
Spotted Woodpeckers, being of more migratory habits, have made irregular appearances 
there of late years. ; 
It is worth some trouble to watch the Yaffle at work upon a tree. Beginning at the 
root, it raps incessantly as it works up the stem, probably with the double purpose of 
disturbing any lurking’ insects and of detecting unsound wood, where fat grubs may be 
harboured. As soon as the game is afoot the tongue of the bird comes into play—a most 
serviceable instrument for the capture of creeping things. The tip is horny and armed with 
a few bristles; the bone of the tongue is prolonged backwards in two branches, reaching 
round the back and over the top of the skull, and meeting again in the cavity of the right 
nostril, where they are attached. Inside the bow thus formed runs a strip of muscle, which, 
when it is contracted, bends the bow and extrudes the tongue. Then, beneath each ear is a 
gland, discharging a glutinous secretion into the trough of the lower mandible, where the 
tongue lies when at rest, enabling the bird to pick up the smallest creeping thing. 
Admirable as is the tongue of the Green Woodpecker, as an example of consummate 
adaptation of structure to requirements, it is by no means the only organ which has been 
modified to suit this bird’s peculiar mode of getting a livelihood. The foot is what is known 
as “ zygodactylic ”—that is, arranged with two toes before and two behind, and the tail coverts 
