VOL. XV.] xNOTES. 61 



running water near it. The nearest pond is several hundred 

 yards away. Unfortunately, some children playing in the 

 pit in April saw a bird leave the hole and promptly dug it 

 out and removed the seven eggs. J- H. Owen. 



ON SOME BREEDING-HABITS OF WOODPECKERS. 



In the Felsted district the Green Woodpecker {Ficus v. 

 virescens) is common ; the Great Spotted Woodpecker 

 {Dryobates ni. anglicus) and the Lesser {D. m. coniminiitus) 

 cannot be called rare, but the latter escapes observation 

 except when it becomes noisy in the spring or when something 

 upsets it when the young are in the nest. One year I saw 

 as many as lour pairs nesting, but all in bad places for 

 observation . 



I have often found nests of the Green and Great Spotted 

 Woodpeckers in places where observation was easy if time 

 could be found. One thing especially called for investigation 

 — -why did the Great Spotted bring food every few minutes, 

 and the Green somewhere about every hour. In 1921 I 

 found two nests of Great Spotted, and it was as usual : 

 each nest was visited by the birds at very short intervals. 

 Several times the boys with me and I myself hid ourselves 

 in turns in the undergrowth to watch, while the rest went 

 hunting, and each had the same story. The birds came and 

 fed and were gone again in no time. Then we found a 

 Green Woodpecker's nest in an old apple tree and only four 

 feet from the ground. After the young hatched we put a 

 rough observation hut a few feet away, and got some very 

 interesting notes. We very soon found out why the Green 

 was so long away. It collected a lot of food of various kinds 

 and swallowed it. When it came to feed the young this was 

 regurgitated and came up like a stiff paste of a light brown 

 colour. It was a very queer sight to watch the old birds, 

 as they clung outside the entrance, disgorging a fresh supply. 

 Each youngster, or at any rate several, got part of the supply 

 at each visit and several times when a young bird tried to 

 stay at the mouth of the hole for a second helping he was, 

 so to speak, smacked back. At this stage the young received 

 the food by putting their bill sideways along the sides of the 

 old bird's bill and the food seemed to be pushed forward 

 by a throat movement of the old one and suction by the 

 youngster, but I could not be very certain of this. Each old 

 bird called when it arrived in the orchard and when it left 

 a much lower and less harsh variety of the usual " yaffle " 

 note, "kwee, kwee, kwa, kwa, kwa, kwa." They had an 



