236 BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



be, really, more amorous, and more the wooer, some- 

 times, than one thinks. No doubt this would, in 

 time, lead to fighting amongst the females too, and 

 I have seen two hen blackbirds fight most desperately, 

 on account of a cock that stood by. Rival women, 

 however, do not fight, and the same general principle 

 might show itself amongst birds, the hens contend- 

 ing, rather, with enticements, allurings, and general 

 assiduity, which, again, need not pass into a formal 

 display. Eagerness, in fact, might show itself in a 

 way more consonant with the feminine constitution, 

 and therefore less easy to observe. 



Be all this as it may, the female woodpecker, in 

 the above two instances, was certainly the agente 

 provocatrice. I saw no more fighting, either on this 

 day, or afterwards. It seemed as though I had been 

 just in time to see the birds' mating arrangements 

 settled. But since these woodpeckers go in pairs, 

 during the winter, and build, each year, in the same 

 tree, they must, I think, be assumed to mate for 

 life. Why, therefore, should the males fight, each 

 spring ? and the same question may be asked in 

 regard to hundreds of other birds. Does not this, 

 in itself, go to show that such fighting may not 

 always stand in such direct relation to the sexual 

 passions as one is accustomed to think that it does ? 

 But to leave questions and come to facts, the habits 

 of our green woodpecker are, already, very different, 

 in several by no means unimportant respects, from 

 those of the family to which it belongs. Its general 

 and in some parts of the country, as I believe, its 

 almost exclusive diet is, now, ants, which it pro- 

 cures on the ground, by digging into their nests. 



