Do Woodpeckers see in the dark ? 145 



and weary feet : and I may even venture to say that 

 she does hate the fellows that want to show wiser or 

 deeper than she is, and would pose as if they knew 

 everything. 



XVIII. 



Colonel Butler had a query in the Zoologist (or 

 Ibis) — certainly one or other — some years ago, re- 

 specting the power of the woodpecker to see in the 

 dark. His query arose in this way. He found a 

 woodpecker's nest with one egg. Cutting a round, 

 circular piece out of the tree, just below the nest, he 

 was able to extract the true egg, and to put in its 

 place a thrush's egg — about the same size and shape, 

 though very different in colour. Having done this, 

 he at once filled up the hole with the bung, as near 

 as he could, exactly colouring it over to the likeness 

 of the bark of the tree. Almost to his surprise, after 

 all this, he found that the woodpecker stuck to the 

 nest ; and when she had laid four more eggs, he took 

 out the bung, and found, to his surprise also, that 

 the thrush's egg had been rolled into the recess left 

 by the bung just there not penetrating far enough in 

 to get even surface inside as well as out, and the 

 thrush's egg almost fell out when he extracted the 

 bung. 



Now, it was clear that when the bird was in the 

 nest the place was quite dark beneath her ; and how 

 did she know that the thrush's egg was not her's — 

 which she most conclusively proved that she did ? 

 But have birds no sense either of touch or of smell ? 

 Either of these senses might have aided the bird even 

 if no light was there. 



