Green Woodpeckers 363 



to be filled with the large brown Formica rufa^ which 

 abounds here in some places, and which, for some obscure 

 reason, is often called "the horse ant." The faeces, also, 

 showed a quantity of the hard shells of the ants, which had 

 passed the gizzard uncomminuted. The inner coating of 

 the stomach, and gizzard, of this specimen, were of a fine 

 pale green, resembling in colour the lighter parts of the 

 plumage. It was an adult male. At the lower joint of the 

 tibia, in each leg, between the tendons but quite unconnected 

 with them, there was a small bladder, filled with an oily trans- 

 parent fluid, and each containing about a dozen small worms. 

 These were rolled together into a close ball, and of a pale, 

 yellowish-green colour, about three-quarters of an inch long, 

 cylindrical, and tapering to a point at either extremity. 

 When dissecting the bird, the day after its death, I thought 

 at first that the little sacs might be oil-glands for the 

 lubrication of the joints ; but when they were cut open, the 

 worms were quite lively and writhed about the paper on 

 which they were turned loose ; they did not, however, 

 survive very long. 



The stomach of another Woodpecker, examined some 

 time later, contained only the remains of a large Goat 

 Moth caterpillar ; but a bonne bouche of this kind can rarely 

 reward the labours of a " Hewhole," l at least in these parts, 

 for the only place in which I noticed their borings here 

 was in some old oaks, near Dolhendre on the Lliw. 



It is sometimes doubted whether a Woodpecker is able 

 to bore a nesting hole into hard, sound wood ; but in 

 Merioneth I saw growing, and undecayed oak trees, bored 

 in several places. In one case, where the nest had been 

 sawn out by somebody, prior to my visit, the section showed 

 the tunnel to have been driven through sound and solid 

 timber all the way, but it did not penetrate quite so far as 

 the heart of the tree, an oak of perhaps a hundred years' 

 old. The downward shaft did not measure more than 

 about six inches from the elbow to the bottom of the 

 hole, but the nesting chamber was excavated out to quite 

 the usual size. Without seeing such a piece of work, it is 

 1 A common synonym for woodpeckers in many parts. 



