160 BOMBAY DUCKS 
little mistake such as this. Human beings sometimes 
do equally silly things. 
A carpenter was once given an order to make a dog 
kennel to accommodate a retriever and her puppy. The 
kennel arrived. Although one-chambered, it had two 
entrances, a large and a small one. On being asked 
why he had made two doors, the thoughtful carpenter 
replied that he had made the big one for the mother 
and the small one for the puppy! 
Woodpecker’s eggs, like those of nearly all birds 
which lay in holes, are white. In such cases it is 
important that the eggs should be conspicuous, other- 
wise some might become separated in the dark from 
the main clutch and so fail to be hatched. Birds cannot 
count, but they can see. 
There are fifty-six species of woodpeckers found in 
India, and all of these, with the exception of one genus, 
comprising three species, nest in cavities in trees, The 
exceptional genus, which is known to ornithologists as 
Micropternus, lays its eggs in holes made in the large 
ants’ nests which are attached to the branches of trees. 
As woodpeckers feed chiefly on ants, their laying eggs 
in the nests of these insects is obviously a case of 
adding insult to injury. 
But the Micropterni seem to be in every way dis- 
reputable birds. Blanford informs us that they have a 
“peculiar, strong, unpleasant smell,” and that “their 
plumage is almost always smeared with a gummy sub- 
stance derived from ants’ nests, and the heads of ants 
are often found attached to their tail-feathers.” 
