126 THE GREEN WOODPECKER 



11 The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech tree." And 

 the fact that as I listened to it I could only gaze out of 

 the old-fashioned bow windows of a town house, which 

 looked out over a sloping expanse of smoky chimneys, 

 made the idea of the Woodpecker tapping mysteriously 

 suggestive and attractive. Since then I have heard it 

 in many a country the green species and its relatives, 

 and the song takes me always back to the old home and 

 the mother's side by the piano. 



Windy March found me one morning in a pleasant 

 wooded district in Suffolk. Above the tossing of the 

 branches of the great elms, as the gale rushed over, 

 sounded the notes of the Mistle-Thrush, fitly named the 

 storm-cock, singing out his defiance to the weather, as 

 he swayed on the topmost bough of an old cedar across 

 the lawn. He is one of the earliest heralds of spring, 

 and is never daunted by the weather, though it revert 

 to wintry wildness. On the same lawn, well kept though 

 it be, if we look out early enough, we may see a pair of 

 Green Woodpeckers. Last evening, when for a time all 

 was hushed and still, the well-known yiking laugh of the 

 Yaffil, as Chaucer called him, came over from the avenue, 

 whence, too, had sounded his busy drumming. Then 

 he and his mate were busy getting the grubs that had 

 bored deep down in the timber, but now come up near 

 the bark of the trees in order to get the warmth necessary 

 for their development. In the early morning hours, 

 when the watchful gardener has not yet appeared, the 

 pair tear holes in his well-tended lawns with their feet, 

 and hack at the turf with strong bills to get at the grubs 

 below. They feed indeed largely on ground grubs 

 throughout the year, as well as on ants in summer, and 

 timber-haunting grubs and beetles. 



