234 
A NATURALIST ON THE PROWL. 
with which the bird startles the insects from the bark 
of an old tree, but the slower and heavier stroke with 
which it excavates a hole for its nest ; so I got up to 
reconnoitre, and what was my delight to find that the 
sound proceeded from a pair of those curious birds, the 
Red Woodpeckers ( Micropternus gularis ), working together 
at an ants’ nest, one of those great brown globular struc- 
tures which disfigure the branches of the trees on all 
these hills. The inmates were pouring forth in hundreds, 
fuming with rage and holding their absurd tails over their 
heads, but the birds did not appear to mind them. They 
worked away for a quarter of an hour, then left, and 
have not returned. But they will return and finish their 
work and bring up their callow young in the penetralia 
of the habitation of a horde of the most venomous and 
implacable little insects that the world produces. 
As I was watching the woodpeckers, Banawat Beg 
came to inform me that a Bullock Dove was sitting on 
the top of a Jack-fruit tree. Turtur meena is the Bullock 
Dove, because it is always found about those open camping 
grounds at which the weary troops of grain-laden bullocks 
close their music and lay down their burdens for the night. 
The Bullock Dove is fat and tasty, and I, moorgee fed 
