330 THE WOODPECKERS 



portant period. The selection of the site seems to have been deter- 

 mined on at 5 A.M. on a Friday, when the female alighted on an oak 

 about ten feet from the ground, picked off a piece of bark of the size 

 of a shilling, and flew away with it. This manosuvre was several times 

 repeated, when both birds began the serious work of boring. Within 

 the space of some forty-eight hours they had completed their task, 

 having drilled a tunnel two inches long, and sunk a shaft of eight 

 inches deep during this time, for when the work was examined at 

 7 A.M. on Sunday, one egg was found at the bottom of the nest. 



Since woodpeckers are more abundant in the southern parts of 

 our islands than elsewhere, it might seem that climate was the deter- 

 mining factor in the distribution, but Ireland compares favourably 

 in this respect with southern England, and would seem in every way 

 as suited to the needs of the birds. Yet such is evidently not the 

 case. 



That the woodpeckers are restricted as to habitat is obvious from 

 the structure of the feet, which are of the type known as "zygo- 

 dactyle" two toes being turned forwards and two backwards an 

 arrangement which obtains only among birds of arboreal habits. 

 Nevertheless, though feet of this type are essentially climbing feet, 

 they do not prevent locomotion on the ground, and one at least of our 

 native species the green-woodpecker is commonly to be seen on the 

 ground during the summer months, eagerly hunting in gardens and 

 pastures in the neighbourhood of trees for ants' nests, on the tenants 

 of which it preys greedily. At such times the carriage of the body is 

 strangely upright, and progress is made by a series of awkward hops. 

 It is interesting to note, in this connection, that Darwin, in the Origin 

 of Species, chapter vii., cites the case of a woodpecker (Colaptes 

 campestris] which, while possessing all the characters of typical wood- 

 peckers, yet lives in the plains of La Plata, where hardly a tree grows, 

 so that it has to make its nest in the holes of banks : while the same 

 seems to be true of Geocolaptes olivacetts in South Africa. 1 These 



1 Newton, Dictionary of Birds, pp. 259-00. 



