SPOTTED WOODPECKER 75 



spectacles and all, is close to them, and seem quite 

 to demand food when there is none. 



Some of the blue tits are equally tame now, 

 and the robin is a little bolder ; but the cole tits 

 seem to become rather wilder, and I dare say I 

 shall soon lose them. I had five little blue tits all 

 together one day ; so fat and funny, so pugnacious 

 and greedy they were ! I believe I like them the 

 best of all my birds, and I am sure they have more 

 intelligence than the others. I wonder whether 

 their brain is comparatively larger. The head of 

 the cole tit looks far larger in comparison with the 

 rest of the body, and they seem intelligent too. 

 Till this winter, however, they have not been here 

 so much as the blue tits, and I have therefore had 

 less opportunity of learning their ways at the 

 window. 



March 16, 1884. 



A whole year has passed since I last made a 

 note in this book. To-day two things occurred 

 that ought to be noticed. I have seen a pair of 

 spotted woodpeckers a bird I believe I never saw 

 before ; and I have heard an o\vl hoot and another 

 answer it in the daytime a thing I certainly never 

 heard before. It was curious to watch the spotted 

 woodpecker ; it was too high above me, but I 

 could see the vibration of the tail that accompanied 

 the whirring noise that it made in boring a hole 



