284 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



ranked among even our casual visitors, but it has 

 been shot more than once so near to us that we are 

 disposed to record the fact. We can also state, on our 

 own authority, that an individual of this species in 

 immature plumage was obtained not many years since 

 on Petersfield heath, from which we infer that it 

 occasionally breeds in the neighbourhood. 



The Nuthatch (Sitta Europcea) is another of our 

 local birds, chiefly inhabiting the beech woods on the 

 uplands, where it breeds in holes in old trees. It is a 

 very pugnacious little fellow, and when it has taken 

 possession of a suitable nesting-place, it resolutely 

 defends it against all feathered aggressors. If the 

 entrance happens to be larger than necessary, it care- 

 fully and neatly contracts it with a cement of loam ; 

 but it is not over-fastidious in its choice of building 

 material, and in default of loam it often finds a delicate 

 substitute in the droppings of sheep or deer. It lays 

 six or seven glossy white eggs, blotched with light red. 



The Greater Spotted Woodpecker (Picus Pipra) and 

 the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Picus striolatus) are 

 found in the same localities as the nuthatch, but in 

 smaller numbers. The remarkable note of one or both 

 is heard almost every spring among the beech woods 

 on the hill, and sometimes in the birch groves of West 

 Heath ; and is quite distinct from the sounds they 

 produce when " tapping the hollow beech tree," which 

 are not audible at any great distance. Of the note of 

 the larger species our local observer writes : " When 

 I heard it last April it was from a distance of five or 

 six hundred yards, and yet it seemed to proceed from 

 the tree nearest to me, which I approached, to find 

 that it was as evidently from the next, and so on from 

 tree to tree through a part of the Garden Wood with 

 the same result, until I emerged from the Forest of 

 Beech into an open glade, and as distinctly heard it a 

 hundred yards further on. I now began to fear that 

 it might turn out to be vox et prceterea nil ; but was at 



