1732 



THE PI CART AN BIRDS 



Europe, this species does not occur beyond the Ural mountains, though it extends 

 to Asia Minor and Western Persia. In Spain and Portugal its place is taken by 

 Sharpe's green woodpecker (G. sharper}, and in Algeria by L,e Vaillant's green 

 woodpecker (G. vaillanti). Of one of the Himalayan species, the black-naped 

 green woodpecker {G. occipitalis) , a curious nest was found near Darjiling, and is 

 recorded by Mr. Hume, who writes that " on the seventeenth of June Mr. Gammie 

 took five hard set eggs of this species out of a large regularly-formed nest placed at 



N 



COMMON GREEN WOODPECKER. 

 (Two-fifths natural size.) 



the bottom of a hollow in a tree, the nest being for all the world like that of 

 some babbling thrush, composed chiefly of coarse moss, roots intermingled with a 

 little moss, and portions of a few broad dry flag leaves. This was below Rungbi, 

 near Darjiling, at a height of about five thousand feet. It was simply impossible, 

 in my opinion, that the woodpecker should have had anything to do with the mak- 

 ing of the nest, but it is very remarkable, I think, that it should even have accepted 



