104 AY BUD (COLLECTORS Wil DIRE Ye 
a week, which it will be easy to get with putty and a wire,” but a fortnight 
later you find, on enquiry, that something has gone wrong with the programme, 
and no eggs are forthcoming so far. I believe that this bird readily changes 
its nesting-site on suspicion; and, as there are numbers of old holes 
available in these woods, it no doubt succeeds in baffling nesters in this 
way, for in July I almost always see youngsters along the outskirts of the 
copses. It is noticeable that most of the holes are on the sides of the trees 
farthest from the nearest path, and it is therefore quite easy to overlook them. 
In 1905 one of these Woodpeckers must have had a mauvais quart 
@heure, though it emerged triumphant in the end. A boy who knew little 
of ornithology saw a brightly coloured bird, which he judged to be a Parrot, 
fly into a hole in a tree. He left it unmolested at the time, but returned 
next day with a friend, a butterfly-net, and apparatus for the extraction 
of the eggs. The hole was out of reach of the ground, but he swarmed up 
and popped the net over it, while his accomplice hammered the tree 
with a thick stick. They kept the performance up until they were persuaded 
that Mrs. Parrot was not at home, a decision which was quickened by 
the sudden collapse of the climber’s thigh-muscles. Down came the net, and 
up came the Woodpecker, which decamped with an exultant laugh and 
left the two conspirators feeling rather flat. However, there remained 
the eggs; they were still obtainable, if they could get at them. Number 
two now swarmed the trunk, and stuck to an uncomfortable position, until, 
at Nature’s dictation, he too slid down. Such poking and scraping as he 
had managed to cram into his short excursion up aloft had produced some 
small pieces of white egg-shell and a little yolk, and this is the nearest 
approach to a Woodpecker’s egg that I have ever known obtained near 
Polegate. 
Some of the clearings in these woods are to my mind unusually 
attractive. One that contains a knoll carpeted in spring with bluebells, and 
producing a wonderful haze of blue in the distance, is a sight that no one 
could forget, while the track that leads to it contains the most effective 
of all woodland trees—a wild fruit-tree. 
Other clearings, from which all the trees have been removed, have been 
overgrown with bracken, and thus afford a suitable breeding-ground for 
the Nightjar. There is little chance of finding the eggs amongst the thick 
cover, unless one happens to put up the bird, and the male is far more often 
flushed than the female. The latter, which can be recognized by the 
absence of the pure white spots on the primaries, seems to sit the closer, so 
close indeed that she sometimes falls a victim to a prowling stoat or rat; 
