Fallacies Relating to the Green Woodpecker. 51 



that does this; though there may be, and is, if the ticking 

 of the " death-watch," as entomologists assert, be a call- 

 note to its mate. But why should a Woodpecker, with 

 enough volume of voice to make itself heard to the 

 distance of a mile why should it, of all others, employ a 

 bit of loose tree-bark as a sound-board in the utterance 

 of its amorous speeches ? 



The truth seems to be, that the resonant bark, being 

 hollow underneath, affords shelter to the woodlouse, with 

 other prey of the Picidce, these knowing that the noise 

 will start the insects out, and so spare them the labour 

 of hacking and splitting. 



Col. Montagu further contradicts the statement of Dr. 

 Plot, that the tapping noise, usually attributed to Wood- 

 peckers, is produced by the Nuthatch. Yet the doctor 

 was in the main right, the colonel altogether wrong. 



Yarrell, who, I believe, still stands at the head of 

 British ornithologists, has also made mistakes about the 

 habits of the Green Woodpecker. He says, "It is one of 

 the earliest birds that retire to rest in the afternoon ; " 

 whereas it is one of the very latest. Scores, hundreds of 

 times, have I heard its loud ''cackle/' and seen the 

 bird itself flitting about my grounds till the last gloam- 

 ing of twilight. 



Again Yarrell states, this time on hearsay authority ^ 

 that Green Woodpeckers " when excavating a hole in a 

 tree, for the purpose of incubation, will carry away the 

 chips to a distance, in order that they may not lead to a 

 discovery of their retreat.*' Wise birds, were it so ! 

 Which it is not ; instead, the very reverse, as I have 

 ample evidence, the " chips " often betraying the locale 

 of their retreat, or more properly speaking, their nest. 

 An instance in point once occurred to myself, when I 



