192 FIRST APPEARANCES OF BIRDS, INSECTS, ETC. 



observers whose names are available are persons of superior 

 education, they may not necessarily have seen the same birds ; 

 that the mere occurrence of a swallow would tend to support 

 the possibility of the occurrence of house martins, since the 

 conditions which favoured the continuance of the one in 

 this country would also render possible the continuance of 

 the other. 



Generally scarce, but present in great quantities on the 

 morning of July 27th at Weymouth. (N.M.R.) 



Dendrocopus major (The Great Spotted Woodpecker),- 

 21st June, 1913, at Canford. (E.H.C.) 



Dendrocopus minor (The Small Spotted Woodpecker). 

 Observed at Dorchester, January 21st. (J.R.) 21st 

 December, at Canford, an adult male Dendrocopus minor 

 observed searching for food. " W.P.C. and I cycled over to 

 Break Hill Wood, and immediately on our arrival were 

 rewarded with a sight of an adult male Dendrocopus minor 

 very busy searching for food on an oak tree of some age. It 

 seemed to prefer searching for food on the smaller branches 

 of the trees. We watched it with the glasses for a long time, 

 and saw it searching on three trees. The hammering was 

 very like that of Dendrocopus major, and very rapid indeed, 

 and the only means I have of judging the incredible rapidity 

 with which this little bird hammers is to compare the per- 

 cussions with the exhaust explosions of a petrol motor. The 

 speed of the woodpecker's blows, to my ear, would about 

 synchronize with the exhaust of our engine at 1,000 revolu- 

 tions per minute. As it is a four-cylinder four-cycle engine 

 there are two exhaust pops per revolution, which would give 

 the speed of the woodpecker's beak at 2,000 blows per 

 minute, which seems almost incredible. However, one 

 thing is certain, the bird's head is an absolute blurr when it 

 hammers, and it looks like a very high speed piece of machinery 

 in motion. Another thing I noticed was that this bird ran 

 down a hanging horizontal branch spirally backwards, 

 feeding as it went. It did not stay long on the main trunk; 

 it simply flew on to it and off again, merely going to it as a 



