THE GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER IN SCOTLAND. 87 
of them, with one exception, suggest any reason for such decrease. 
The general opinion, widely current in Invernesshire, is that 
Squirrels were the primary cause of this decrease, but only one 
writer has attempted to describe the modus operandi by which 
this was effected. 
Mr. C. Y. Michie, in his Prize Essay upon ‘Diseases of 
Forest Trees,’ written in 1865, says:—‘ Where Squirrels are 
most numerous Woodpeckers .are most scarce. In conversation 
with a sawyer, a man of observation, a few days ago, he told me 
that near to a saw-pit where he was at work a Woodpecker 
hatched its eggs, and when the young ones were nearly full- 
fledged, he observed, one morning, a Squirrel enter the nest and 
carry off a young bird: this was again and again repeated by the 
Squirrel till the whole brood was destroyed. It is now,” 
continues Mr. Michie, “pretty generally known that Squirrels 
~ eat the eggs of Wood Pigeons, from which it may pretty safely be 
inferred that the eggs of the Woodpecker and other insect- 
devourers will share a similar fate.” Mr. Michie also makes the 
statement that, where Squirrels abound, a certain insect commits 
the greatest ravages. He then tells us :—“In Strathspey, about 
twenty years ago, Woodpeckers were very numerous; the holes 
which they bored in the trunks of the old trees may be seen at 
the present time in hundreds, whilst now, not a single Wood- 
pecker is to be seen in the whole Forest. About the year 1840,* 
the first Squirrel was seen in Duthell Forest; and now they are 
seen in hundreds and appear on a rapid increase.” 
In this essay Mr. Michie clearly proves his case against the 
Squirrel for damages done to trees; but the evidence of its 
destructiveness to the eggs and young of the Woodpecker is not 
so clear in my estimation. Not that I doubt the solitary instance 
related above, for there is other satisfactory evidence that 
Squirrels do occasionally carry off eggs and young birds, and the 
nest of the particular Woodpecker referred to may possibly have 
been more than usually accessible. But I wish to combat the 
general impression which is said to prevail in the district referred 
to, that this is a common or frequent habit of the Squirrel. I am 
quite of the opinion expressed by Prof. Newton in letters to me, 
that the holes made by the Great Spotted Woodpecker are, as a 
* This date is one of many which go to prove a natural resuscitation of the 
Squirrel in the Valley of the Spey. 
