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unless it be displaced by the Starling, against which bird it is ever on the watch. The Duke of 

 Argyll informs me that in Cliveden woods he has seen the Green Woodpecker sit motionless for 

 hours together at the entrance of its hole to prevent its being occupied by a pair of Starlings 

 which infested the neighbourhood." Mr. G. Dawson Rowley, in a letter to 'The Ibis,' dated 

 from Brighton the 10th of November 1860, observes: — "In the spring the rain prevented many 

 birds from breeding. I witnessed the efforts of a pair of Pious viridis to do so. Once they were 

 driven out by Starlings ; twice, after cutting deep holes with great labour, the wet obtained an 

 entrance and filled the chamber ; at last they gave up in despair." 



Respecting the nature of the food of the Green Woodpecker, we translate the following 

 interesting note communicated to the 'Journal fur Ornithologie ' (1854, p. 181) by Mr. L. 

 Martin, of Berlin : — " It would be most interesting if we could but ascertain what some of our 

 well-known birds at times find it necessary to feed on. They may be led to eat certain food 

 which at other times they cannot make use of, either when food is wanting or some particular 

 article of food is by chance found in unusual abundance. A curious and welcome instance of 

 this nature will doubtless be that of a Picus viridis which some winters ago was brought to 

 me. Its stomach was filled entirely with a species of fly which I do not quite know, and which 

 was scarcely larger than a common house-fly. I counted, of those that could be distinguished, 

 ninety-two flies. These must certainly have been to some extent, if not entirely, living in a 

 community, or were at least collected together during the winter, and through some lucky chance 

 the Woodpecker found out their retreat, and had either opened an entrance with his powerful 

 beak, or perhaps had but little trouble in bringing them out with his long tongue." 



Naumann, writing about its food, says as follows : — 



" Its chief food is at all seasons of the year, but more particularly in the summer, ants and 

 their pupse (so-called ant's eggs) of different sorts, viz. the yellow ant [Formica rubra), the brown 

 ant (Formica fusca), the black ant (Formica nigra), and the red wood-ant (Formica ruf a), seldom, 

 however, the horse-ant (Formica herculeana). ... It also finds in the ant-hills the larvae 

 and pupse of Cetonia aurata, which, together with many others of the ground-beetles, it eats 

 with avidity, and often visits the fresh-mown meadows, where it hops about and bores holes in 

 the ground, so wearing its nasal bristles in doing this that they get quite thin, and in the summer 

 do not even cover the nostrils. ... It sometimes attacks the wasps' nests for the sake of 

 the larvse." 



Mr. Stevenson, Avriting from Norwich, has the following little note in his ' Birds of 

 Norfolk ' : — 



" Mr. T. E. Gunn, of this city, assures me that on one occasion he discovered small frag- 

 ments of acorns in the stomach of a Green Woodpecker — which agrees with the statement of 

 Naumann that, besides insects and their eggs, acorns also form an occasional article of diet. 

 Bechstein, moreover, asserts that they will crack nuts." 



Dr. E. Hamilton informs us that " these birds, if not disturbed, will come day after day to 

 the same haunts and regularly hunt the trees, following the same regular plan, never missing a 

 tree, and coming at the same time daily, almost to a minute. It is particularly partial to oaks and 

 sycamores, and always begins at the bottom of the tree, examining every part most carefully." 



The eggs of the Green Woodpecker are white, and four or five in number, and varieties are 



2p 



