348 JOURNAL, B03IBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X. 



to me since could not be disiiinguished from them. Moreover, those 

 found by Bingham (Hume's " Nests and Eggs," vol. II, p. 315) seem to 

 have been much the same, though slightly narrower than mine, which 

 measure .1-45" X I'lG", 1-44" X 1-16", and 1-34" X I'lS". 



Different individuals of this species seem to vary very much in tem- 

 perament ; I have seen birds so wild that I could not get anywhere 

 vsfithin shot of them, yet on another occasion I had a shot at one of a 

 pair of birds, missed, went on after them, had another shot and got the , 

 male, and then shot the female, who had flown to another tree not fifty 

 yards beyond that on which I shot her mate. 



Should one of a pair be shot, the remaining one will stay for days 

 near the place, calling loudly all day, except during the very hottest 

 hours, from 12 to 2 or 3 in the afternoon. 



It does not ahvays make its nest very high up, for there is one, now 

 just completed (9th April, 1895) and not far from this place, Gunjong, 

 which is in a big dead trunk of a tree some thirty feet high, about 

 half-way up which the hole has been excavated. 



The noise made by this woodpecker in tapping on trees is different 

 to that made by an}^ other woodpecker which I know, though some 

 of the big birds of the genus Thriponax may m.ake the same. It is a 

 very deep noise, and seems, after the first tap or two, to go off' into a 

 series of reverberations. 



It goes about in parties from four to six in number as a rule, though 

 I once counted ten together, and this party did not, as I expected, split 

 up into two when frightened away by a gunsliot. 



They are extremely pertinacious in the way they refuse to leave any 

 spot where food is plentiful. During April, 1895, I was camping in 

 the Mahar Valley, and near my camp were s'ome four or five huge 

 trees, their trunks, which were much scarred, split and broken up, 

 doubtless harbouring vast numbers of larvse and other insects. These 

 trees were regularly haunted by two pairs of slaty woodpeckers, and 

 from the way they refused to leave the vicinity I thought they must be 

 breeding. A careful search brought no nest-hole to light, so even- 

 tually I fired two long shots at one pair, but missed both ; nothing 

 daunted, both pairs were back again in the evening, and I got snapshots. 

 at two, getting both. Even then the remaining pair kept returning to 

 the place, and at last, after many missesj one of my collectors succeeded 



