Mar., 1889. 
IN SHERWOOD FOREST. 
57 
or “eggs.” so essential to the health of young Pheasants. 
There must be something very attractive to Nightjars in 
Thieve’s Wood, for the only example of the Egyptian Nightjar 
ever known in Great Britain was shot here. 
Not very many species of birds will be found in the 
deeper parts of the woods (this particular stretch consist¬ 
ing of two, separated only by a road, covers about 850 
acresj, but on the outskirts Tree Pipits like to breed, and are 
common, and some of our woodland warblers and finches, 
together with members of the thrush and tit families, will be 
noticed. In cold spring weather, however, it is pleasant to 
penetrate far into the thick warm wood, where, save for the 
waving of the tree-tops, you forget the searching east wind 
outside. The laughing cry of the Green Woodpecker is often 
heard, and the naturalist’s attention may sometimes be 
attracted by a little heap of chips at the foot of a tree, which 
leads to the discovery of a freshly-hewn hole in the trunk. 
The Greater Spotted Woodpecker is also found sparingly, but 
I have only once met with it. The old woodpecker holes are 
a godsend to the ubiquitous Starlings, which occupy most of 
them to the exclusion of other birds, the noisy chattering of 
their young broods being a common sound as one strolls 
through the forest in late spring. Perhaps it is this usurpa¬ 
tion of available holes which induces the Redstart to place its 
nest in this locality (where natural nesting sites should be 
plentiful) among dead leaves and bracken on the ground. I 
have examined a nest in this unusual position, and others 
have been known. The Woodpigeon or Ring-Dove is naturally 
plentiful, and a few pairs of Jays may be noticed, though the 
remains of far more adorn the keeper’s gallows, while in 
winter that northern freebooter, the Hooded Crow, is a 
frequent and numerous visitor. 
The Woodcock, of which a few pairs occasionally remain 
to breed here, deposits its eggs in a rudely-formed nest 
among the dead oak leaves, which match in tint the bird’s 
russet plumage—a beautiful illustration of that protective 
colouring to which so many ground-breeding birds trust for 
the safety of their eggs and newly-hatched young. In some 
parts large holly trees grow freely. When I first knew the 
woods, some five years ago, these were green and flourishing, 
but most of them have been killed since then by the rabbits, 
which have increased, gnawing the bark during the late severe 
winters. Under the spreading branches of glossy leaves the 
Woodcocks found in winter a warm and sufficiently darksome 
retreat in the daytime. Notoriously eccentric in its choice 
of winter quarters, the Woodcock visits Thieve’s Wood in 
