32 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



it makes short excursions after fresh hunting grounds or in pursuit of some 

 flying insect, but its favourite food consists of ants and their cocoons in search 

 of which it digs into the hills formed b}' these insects. 



The Green Woodpecker usually excavates a hole for itself in the partly 

 decayed trunk of some soft-wooded tree, showing no special preference for an}'- 

 particular species, though in Kent I have chiefly noticed it entering holes in 

 orchard-trees ; the entrance to the hole is horizontal until the rotten core is 

 reached when it descends abruptly, and the five to six glossy white eggs are 

 deposited upon the sprinkling of chips or rotten dust at the bottom of the cavity. 

 I received my eggs from a keeper in the New Forest, never having personally 

 taken them ; they were forwarded to me unblown, and I found the shell very hard 

 to drill. One of these is figured on Plate VIII., fig. 266. 



The call of the bird has been variously described but so far as I can 

 remember, it is best represented by the rustic name of "Yafile," which has 

 been given to this species. The rapid tapping frequently heard is now recognised 

 as a signal to its mate and not merely (as formerly supposed) to disturb its 

 hidden prey. 



In addition to the insect- food already mentioned as forming its principal 

 diet, the Green Woodpecker was declared by Bechstein to eat nuts, and Mr. T. 

 E. Gunn (as related by Stevenson) discovered fragments of acorns in the stomach 

 of one of these birds : Naumann also mentions that it eats acorns. 



The end of April and beginning of Maj? are stated to be the season of 

 nidification ; but my eggs were taken from the nest in June, 1878, and I have 

 certainly seen the birds examining a hole in a tree about the middle of the 

 latter month : of course a first laying of eggs may have been destro3^ed, or a 

 first nest seized b}- Starlings, as sometimes happens. As a rule this bird 

 excavates a fresh hole every year, but not invariabl}^ and doubtless, if ready 

 to lay, the female would perforce accept the first hole suitable for her purpose. 



In winter this species often wanders far in search of food, and not rarely it 

 falls into the hands of the bird-catchers, who if unable to find a purchaser of it 

 living, doubtless often sell it, for stuffing, to publicans and others who like to 

 have a case of bright-coloured birds to show to their friends. In August, 1895, 

 a bird-catcher brought me a female of this species, which he assured me was a 

 rare foreign bird, and when I told him that it was a Green Woodpecker he 

 seemed only half convinced. He said if I did not want it he should kill and 

 stuff it, as he did not know anyone else likely to buy it as a cage-bird. Of 

 course I bought it and put it into a spacious cage, up the back of which I 

 placed a large piece of loose bark, behind which the bird retired, just showing its 



