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last led by the ear to an old stag-headed ash tree near 

 the park fence, and took every precaution to obtain a 

 sight of the bird. In this I very soon succeeded, but 

 not till it had first caught sight of me ; and, after a 

 mutual look of enquiry, we abruptly parted for the 

 season." Both species lay their white glossy eggs in 

 the bottom of holes of their own boring in the trunks 

 of decaying trees. The Yaffle, or Green Woodpecker 

 (Gecinus viridis) is another beautiful denizen of our 

 beech woods, more common than the last two species, 

 and similar to them in its habits ; but its loud cry 

 differs remarkably from theirs. When the yaffle is 

 engaged in preparations for nidification, one might 

 imagine that he looks upon the whole affair as a rich 

 joke, he is so perpetually making the woods resound 

 with hearty shouts of laughter ; as a very natural con- 

 sequence he is sometimes spoken of as the " laughing 

 Satyr." His neat circular borings are very numerous 

 in the old trees in the park ; and sometimes they may 

 be seen where there is not the slightest evidence of 

 decay on the exterior of the tree. In the season of 

 1 86 1 a yaffle was almost daily engaged from the latter 

 end of April till the beginning of May in perforating 

 the trunk of a beech tree which, under close examina- 

 tion even by practical hewers, presented no symptom 

 whatever of disease or decay. Not a flaw in the bark 

 could be detected ; the very chips produced in the 

 process of boring were quite fresh and green ; still, on 

 it laboured assiduously until a pair of unprincipled 

 starlings set up a counter claim to its intended domi- 

 cile, and so rudely backed their pretensions that the 

 poor yaffle, reluctantly sacrificing the fruits of its 

 labour, after several days of contention retired in dis- 

 gust. It must have proved a barren acquisition to the 

 starlings however, as the yaffle, whose wonderful in- 

 stinct after all had not misled it, had only just reached 

 the decaying interior of the tree, after having driven a 

 tunnel horizontally through three or four inches of 



