THE GREEN WOODPECKER 79 



The characteristic formation of its breast-bone has 

 been an advantage to the yaffle in a way that can 

 hardly have been taken into account when it was 

 planned in Nature's workshop. The resulting shal- 

 lowness of the pectoral muscles those muscles which 

 make the breast of a partridge such delicate fare is 

 the reason why omnivorous man has never admitted 

 the yaffle to his larder ; or at least, if he has done 

 so, it is not recorded that the experiment was ever 

 repeated. Even in France, where everything at all 

 edible is turned to immediate use for the table 

 where the native culinary genius is so wonderful 

 that I have eaten a kelt salmon in that land, and 

 enjoyed it too even in France, I say, nobody has 

 ever concocted a palatable dish of piverts. Thus it 

 comes to pass that, though one may travel in 

 France for days in spring, and never hear the 

 gladsome note of blackbird, thrush, or lark, you 

 cannot be long in a French woodland without being 

 greeted by the yaffle's well-known cry. It is as 

 inseparably associated with the oak copsewood, 

 which represents the ancient forests of the Loire, 

 as the tassels of mistletoe are with the roadside 

 poplars. 



Yet another peculiarity of this family must be 



