478 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



with the small birds in my aviary, though, when kept indoors, 

 he showed a great hatred to some young Bed-backed Shrikes. 



I happened to leave Carlisle for a few days in August ; when 

 I started on the 23rd the Woodpecker seemed as well as possible, 

 and it was a great sorrow to find him very poorly when I returned 

 on the 29th. As soon as I entered the aviary on the latter day 

 he sidled round the trunk to meet me, but he was manifestly 

 very feeble, suffering from dysentery, which I could not stop. 



On the 30th he flew to the ledge over the door to meet 

 me, and took some mealworms with the cry of " ack, ack," 

 which Mr. William Duckworth compared to the cry of a young 

 Jackdaw. 



On Sunday, Sept. 2nd, I found him on the same ledge, his 

 head buried in his feathers. He looked up to greet me, with a 

 series of little cries for sympathy, but was too weak to swallow 

 a mealworm : half an hour later I found him dead. His con- 

 stitution had been weakened by moulting (he died mid-moult), 

 aud he may have induced the complaint by fretting for me, as 

 he was so much attached to me. Had I been at home when the 

 attack first occurred, I have little doubt that I should have 

 saved his life ; but the diet of bread and milk, nuts, and fruit, 

 which was all that he would take regularly, in addition to insects 

 and a little strawberry-jam, was not sufficiently nourishing for a 

 period so trying as that of the moult. Had he been taken 

 younger, he might have been reared on egg and beef, but unfor- 

 tunately he would never eat meat or any other nutritive 

 substance. 



Examples of this bird have been acquired by the Zoological 

 Society at pretty frequent intervals since 1863 ; but I am not 

 aware that such specimens, as I have n^self seen there, were 

 long-lived. 



I have endeavoured to cut down my notes as much as 

 possible ; as they now stand I venture to hope that they may 

 not be without interest, since, as Mr. Gould wrote in 1873, " we 

 really know but little respecting the actions of even our com- 

 monest Woodpecker." 



