CARPENTER BIRDS 13 



their size and their position on the ground. They 

 were easily stalked, and showed very little fear. Two 

 or three birds would attack one ant-heap, digging 

 away with their beaks, though their short claws were 

 useless. They then retired a few inches, and leaning 

 back with their heads held at some distance from the 

 ground, shot out their long tongues like fishing-lines, 

 and " whipped " the ants up at lightning speed. The 

 beak was in no case used to pick up a single ant, but 

 only as a mattock ; the tongue did the rest. 



Every one who has done any bird-nesting knows of 

 certain groves where there are "woodpecker trees." 

 Sometimes these trees are inhabited by both the small 

 and large species, as the size of the holes shows. 

 Their favourite prospecting ground is a tree which 

 has received an injury that exposes a long length of 

 wood without bark upon it, generally a Scotch fir. 

 This exposed part is sometimes hollow, and always 

 verging towards decay, which begins at the top. The 

 woodpeckers find a place where the wood is in about 

 the right condition, and bore a hole into it. If the 

 interior is not yet hollow, they make a chamber and 

 lay their eggs. They never plaster up the orifice, as 

 a nuthatch sometimes does, but leave a clean round 

 hole. Next year the woodpecker wants a clean nest, 

 so it begins a foot or so lower down. If the wood is 

 harder than it feels inclined to work upon, it goes to 

 another tree. But in a year or two it comes back 

 and tries the old one. In some of the woodpecker 

 trees in the tall firs of Holly Water Clump in 

 Woolmer Forest there are, or were, stems pierced 



