of the discovery of some Nests of the Black Woodpecker. 267 
The depth of the cavity below the entrance-hole was rather less than 
two feet, which was quite sufficient to prevent my ascertaining what 
lay at the bottom, though there was no difficulty in introducing 
the hand as far as the upper part of the cavity. An alarm that 
the old stump was giving way with my weight brought me very 
speedily to the ground. The woodman meanwhile cut down a 
young spruce, and had it reared up against the ancient birch to 
prevent the anticipated catastrophe. He then went up himself 
and laid open the nest—being able to do so with his hands alone, 
so far as to introduce the whole of his arm into the cavity. To 
my intense delight he proclaimed that there were eggs at the 
bottom. I immediately ascended, in order to see them in situ ; but 
that was impossible without further enlarging the hole, for which 
my fingers were not strong enough. The party below in the 
interval had rigged up a long pole with a cap attached to the 
end of it, into which I deposited the eggs, and then slipped 
down in time to receive them once more into my hands. They 
were five in number, one much fresher than the others, which 
were partially incubated; though on blowing them, it was found 
that no feathers had been formed. In their smooth ivory tex¬ 
ture these eggs very much resemble the well-known eggs of 
Picus viridis. The fresher one was of a glossy white, and suffi¬ 
ciently transparent to show the colour of the yolk; the others 
were slightly wood-stained, and presented a duller appearance, 
owing to their having been incubated. When blown, this differ¬ 
ence is removed; but the wood-stains of course remain, and 
somewhat detract from their beauty. In shape they resemble 
eggs of P. viridis, and are not so much larger as I expected 
would be the case. 
The hole was of this year's making. However, the bird is not 
in the habit of always making a fresh hole, as I afterwards found 
out. Of the three inhabited nests discovered, two were new 
and one old. Our woodman had a theory that the Spilkraka 
occupies its “ Bo '' during two successive years if not disturbed, 
and he thought that this identical pair were a young couple that 
had just set up for themselves. Chips, some of them half an 
inch in length, lay plentifully at the foot of the tree, giving the 
ground the appearance of the floor of a carpenter's workshop. I 
