Ss Af 
THE ZOOLOGIST. 
THIRD SERIES. 
Vou. IX.] OCTOBER, 1885. [No. 106. 
BIRD-LIFE IN POMERANIA. 
By Dr. THeoporr Hoxuanp, or Store. 
As we traverse the forest in the last days of February the 
dark firs are still clad in wintry garb, the bare oak and beech 
trees stretch out their naked arms imploringly to the spring, no 
longer able to hide from the eye of the ornithologist the eyries 
which they embrace so protectingly. The huge nest of the 
Osprey is still there waiting for its light-winged occupants; the 
wild storms have already much shaken its foundation, a long dry 
branch of the beech tree. Snow covers everything as far as the 
eye can reach; trees and bushes are still in the icy fetters of 
winter. All life seems to have forsaken the forest. Thus the 
Pomeranian woods seem empty, and forlorn; no gay Finch (Fink) 
is twittering, no Willow Wren (Laubvogel) chatters in the foliage, 
through the trees at night no touching melody is warbled by the 
Nightingale (Nachtigall): all these delicate inhabitants of the 
forest have gone to the south to escape the rough caresses of 
winter. 
And yet all life has not disappeared. Our carpenter, the Pied 
Woodpecker (Specht), with his black and white coat, is still with 
us, and, seated on the trunk of an oak, breaks, with his busy 
knocking, the monotonous silence of the forest. He looks up in 
astonishment as he hears the scrunching of the snow at our 
approach, then flies off, angrily screaming because we have dared 
to disturb him at his work. With him have remained his two 
cousins, the “ Greencoat”’ (Griimrockige), who, according to the 
popular belief, has the gift of finding the “ spring-root,”’ and the 
ZOOLOGIST.— oct. 1885. 25 
