40 



placed within a few yards of the ground. This was the 

 case with one that laid its eggs in a beech tree in the Grand 

 Avenue in 1858. The attachment of this bird to its nest 

 was so extraordinary as to be worth recording. The nest 

 was first discovered and cut open on the fifth of May, and 

 the old bird was caught in the hole and handled for some 

 minutes, but there were no eggs ; a fortnight afterwards 

 the hole was found to have been deepened by nearly afoot, 

 and on its being again enlarged with a hatchet, the bird 

 w^as again caught, but still there were no eggs. The bird, 

 however, still retained her afiection for the tree, eggs were 

 discovered on the 20th, and the appearance of the hole 

 after the Midsummer holidays gave satisfactory proof that 

 a young family of woodpeckers had been reared therein. 

 Since then the hole has been occupied successively by a 

 Nuthatch, a Starling, a great Tit, and a Blue Tit." 



As to the last sentence in this extract, I have observed 

 that old woodpecker's holes form the foundation at least of 

 the greater proportion of the very numerous breeding holes 

 of the various tree-building birds of our grand old Forest. 



Some acquaintances of mine once took some young wood- 

 peckers of this species and tried to bring them up by hand. 

 These birds, five in number, were allowed the range of a 

 large outbuilding, in which there was a great deal of old 

 wood work, up which they used to climb, uttering all the 

 time that unearthly startling shriek peculiar to them. They 

 were kept alive and well for about a month, after which 

 they " went the way of all pets." 



I am sorry to say there are certain men in the Forest 

 who have become greatly skilled in noosing these birds, thus 

 wantonly destroying an immense number. This is to be 



