London Birds. 17 



She begins life by murdering her foster brothers and 

 sisters, whom she is pretty sure to shuffle one by one 

 on to her hollow back and pitch out of the nest before 

 she is ready to leave it herself. She grows up the 

 charge is proved beyond all question to think as 

 lightly of marriage vows as she does of a mother's 

 duties. Excepting that they have two toes in front 

 and two behind the distinguishing feature of the 

 class the Cuckoos have little or nothing in common 

 with the " climbers " proper ; but a visit from one of 

 them would be just enough to give us a claim to the 

 Woodpeckers as a London family, even if none of the 

 true Woodpeckers were ever to be seen. Stories are 

 still occasionally told of the little spotted Woodpecker, 

 and more frequently of the commoner Green Wood- 

 pecker, having been seen in Kensington Gardens. 

 Probably, at one time, both may not have been un- 

 common there, but their visits are now comparatively 

 rare. A Green Woodpecker was heard and seen in 

 Hyde Park in November, 1885. 



The birds of the old world, as well as the "two- 

 legged creatures without feathers," are left behind by 

 their more go-ahead American cousins. 



There is a Californian Woodpecker which is not 

 content with making holes in trees, after the manner 

 of its kind on this side of the Atlantic, but corks them 

 when made. There is a specimen of its work in the 

 British Museum a piece of the bark of a tree with 

 round holes in it neatly stopped with acorns. It is 

 not easy to say what the precise object of the bird in 

 corking his holes may be, unless it is that he has 

 stalled calves grubs not quite at their best when first 

 found fattening in pens for future use. 



Woodpeckers generally seem to be birds of an 

 enquiring turn of mind. Among the curiosities of 



