178 By Leafy Ways. 



chinks in search of insects ; or, swaying his whole 

 body to add force to the blow, he splits away the bark 

 with his strong beak, or digs deep into the soft wood 

 where it is beginning to decay. The sunshine glows 

 on the gold and green of his forester's livery, and 

 touches with an added fire the vivid crimson of his 

 crest. Now he looks up to answer the hail of some 

 brother of the craft, 



And his jovial shout peals gaily out, 

 Like a stave of a drinking song. 



There is a stir of footsteps on the leaves. He stops 

 his work and waits as still as if carved in wood. A 

 dead stick snaps under an unwary footstep. In a 

 moment the bird glides behind the trunk, and climb- 

 ing higher up, watches from behind a branch the 

 movements of the intruder. The steps draw nearer. 

 The woodpecker sweeps silently away from the other 

 side of the tree, skirts the long, tangled hedgerow, and 

 shows for a moment like a gleam of gold ere he 

 vanishes among 1 the grey shadows of his favourite 

 orchard. There is a hole in the stem of the old 

 pollard ash in the hedge yonder that may have been 

 his nest. 



Many birds make their homes in holes in trees ; but 

 the green woodpecker cuts his out for himself, gener- 

 ally in the very heart of a living tree. He does, it is 

 true, make plenty of shallow, irregular cuttings in 

 rotten wood, in search of the grubs and beetles that 



