334 THE WOODPECKERS 



is occupied year after year, as is often the case, it becomes completely 

 hollowed out, and has one or more entrance holes, each as round as if 

 bored with an augur. He kept a pair under observation while con- 

 structing their nursery. They chose a silver birch broken off some 

 thirty feet from the ground, and several trial holes were made before 

 the nest-hole was finally bored, two-thirds from the top of the tree. 

 The lawn was littered with chips. Boring began on Friday, May 24. 

 On Saturday the hole was deep enough to conceal the borers ; on 

 Sunday they worked the whole day, bringing up beakfuls of excavated 

 material and ejecting it into the air. They worked so hard, that after 

 each discharge the birds would cling, gasping with open beak at the 

 entrance. By the 38th their labours were finished. Finally, he 

 remarks, young were first heard in the hole on 25th June, by 7th July 

 they had left the nest and vanished. 



Mr. H. E. Howard 1 has made some particularly interesting 

 observations on the habits of this bird when feeding, inasmuch as he 

 points out that, in common with many and it may be with all 

 other species, it displays a perfectly mechanical method of hunting for 

 food, since it returns again and again to the same spot for food, 

 having regular rounds, wherein certain trees are visited in a definite 

 order daily. 



In its general habits the lesser spotted-woodpecker differs, as 

 one would suppose, in no very striking particulars from its larger 

 relatives; and such differences therein as are to be detected are 

 differences calculated to avoid competition with its relatives. It 

 seems to be generally agreed that when in search of food it displays 

 a greater partiality to tall trees, and in particular to elms, than its 

 larger relative ; nevertheless squabbles for desirable nesting sites 

 between the two take place wherever both species occupy the same 

 area. On occasion, however, it descends to the ground to search 

 among the long grass for insects lurking there. In its choice of a 

 breeding area, however, it appears to prefer orchards, pear and apple 



' British Warblers, p. 29, Part 2. 



