PLATE I 

 GREEN WOODPECKER. Gecinus -viridis 



May 27///, 1898. Mildenhall, Suffolk. The Green Woodpecker's nest in this 

 Plate was about seven feet from the ground, in the trunk of a Spanish 

 chestnut. For many years the birds occupied a hole on the other side of 

 the trunk, and somewhat lower down ; but the outside of the tree became 

 so rotten that pieces of it broke away, and the Woodpeckers shifted their 

 quarters. 



The morning after I took the photograph of it I found the broken egg- 

 shells lying at the foot of the tree, so the young birds had evidently just 

 hatched out. 



When I was in the New Forest in '97 I had very great difficulty in 

 finding a hole occupied by the Green Woodpecker. Starlings simply swarm 

 there, and if the Woodpeckers leave their nesting-hole before it is finished, 

 even for one or two minutes, it is immediately annexed by a pair of 

 Starlings. 



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