THE WOODPECKERS 



learn whether the focal matter is removed by one or both parents, 

 or whether it is absorbed fcy the rotten wood on which the young rest 



So far nothing has been said of the courtship, or of the peculiar 

 features of the coloration of the green- woodpecker, and this 

 because it seems advisable to consider these facts in comparison with 

 the greater and lesser spotted-woodpeckers. Before we enter upon 

 these pliases of the life-history, however, it would be well to briefly 

 compare these two epeeiei with the green- wood pecker in regard to 

 their general haunts and habits. 



The giealei spotted is, to begin with, less common in our hhlilii 

 than the green-woodpecker, and seldom, if ever, haunts the same 

 spots, showing a preference for oak woods, hedgerows with large ash- 

 trees, small plantations of poplar and alder, and the lines of pollard 

 willows skirting rivers. It is a shy and solitary bird, preferring 

 smaller trees and the upper branches rather than the trunk. 

 Further, it is but rarely seen on the ground, for it does not make 

 ants its prey, though insects form its chief diet In the iienon, 

 however, it will hunt orchards for cherries and other fruit, while in 

 the autumn the diet is varied by the addition of acorns, beech-mast, 

 the seeds of conifers, and the berries of the mountain ash. As a 

 climber it is in no way inferior to the green-woodpecker, and in 

 evidence of this we may cite Mr. J. H. Gurney, 1 who relates of a pair 

 in a cage at the Gardens of the Zoological Society, that they were 

 fond of traversing the wire top of their cage back downwards, not after 

 the ordinary fashion of climbing, but by a series of hops, an action so 

 curious that he would not have believed it possible if he had not 

 seen it 



According to Mr. Abel Chapman, 2 the great spotted-woodpecker, 

 at any rate on the northern confines of its range in Great Britain, 

 prefers coniferous woods. Some individuals, however, select as 

 breeding-places, he says, deciduous trees birch, ash, elder, alder, and 

 wych elm, and always those which are rotten at the core. If one tree 



t, 1001. p. 129. * Bird-Life of the Border*, p. 188. 



