18 Forest Birds. 



occasional visitor. Naturally a shy and wary bird 

 it is not often seen, but its resonant laughing note 

 may always be heard in the wood it frequents. This 

 is its only note, and as there is no other British bird 

 that makes a sound anything like the Yaffler, as it 

 is sometimes called on account of its note, it can 

 scarcely be mistaken. 



When walking through a wood one often sees a 

 round hole, some two inches in diameter, in a tree 

 trunk. Perhaps the tree is a beech or an oak, but at 

 all events one may be pretty sure that it is in decay, 

 for the Woodpecker has made the hole, and it seldom 

 attacks a perfectly sound tree. Its object in making 

 these holes is to provide a nesting place. In April 

 this bird bores small holes in a number of trees until 

 a suitable one is found, when it sets to work in 

 earnest, and a cavity is cut, chip by chip, with its 

 massive bill, some three or four inches horizontally 

 into the trunk, and continuing downwards about 

 eighteen inches, then gradually widening, until at the 

 bottom it forms a round platform large enough for 

 the bird to sit on. So hard are its blows, that the 

 bird often chips off a piece of wood several inches in 

 length. Moreover, the Green Woodpecker is a 

 careful worker ; and the chips are not left, as they 

 are by other Woodpeckers, in a white staring heap 

 at the bottom of the tree, to mark the position of 



