SOME BIRDS I HAVE MET 213 



tongue against the roof of the mouth. When 

 perching the Nightjar usually — but not invari- 

 ably — squats lengthwise on a branch, and not 

 crosswise, as birds in general do. It haunts 

 bracken-covered slopes in the neighbourhood of 

 woodland, and is one of the latest bird visitors 

 to arrive from across the seas. Gilbert White 

 narrates in his charming Natural History of Set- 

 borne many interesting habits of this bird, but his 

 observation that the country people of his time 

 had a notion that it was injurious to weanling 

 calves, by inflicting as it strikes at them a fatal 

 distemper known by the name of puckeridge, has 

 long since been exploded. White mentions one 

 particularly interesting habit of this bird, namely, 

 he observed it catch by means of its middle toe a 

 Moth when on the wing. This toe is furnished 

 with a serrated claw, and, by a bend of the head, 

 the bird delivers the insect into its mouth! 



Another interesting tenant of the woodland is 

 the Great Spotted Woodpecker. This species 

 does not seem nearly so well distributed as the 

 Lesser Spotted and the handsome Green species, 

 but I know of more than one district where all 

 three species nest. The Great Spotted is a beauti- 

 ful bird in its black and white dress, brilliant 

 crimson head, belly, and under tail-coverts. It 

 feeds for the most part on insects which lurk in 

 the crevices of the bark and decayed wood of trees. 



