tically on opposite sides of a small horizontal branch, hammering away at 
each other as they would at a dead tree. They were far too busily engaged 
to take any notice of me, and after watching them for ten minutes, or a quar¬ 
ter of an hour, I left them still screaming and fighting* " 
I have observed that they do not live on very good terms with the Racket 
Tailed Drongo, (Dlssemurus Malabaricus), but in this case it is the latter i 
that I have always noticed to be the aggressor, flying at and driving the 
Woodpeckers from the trees In which they,, the Drongos, may be sitting. 
The skin of the Red Woodpecker is tough and very thick, but not so much 
so as the foregoing Chrysocolaptes; its neck is thicker in proportion to its 
head than in that bird. 
NIDIFICATION 
In the South of Ceylon th<:,Red Woodpecker breeds from February until JunQ 
and not unfrequently nests in the trunk of a dead cocoanut tree, cutting a 
round entrance and excavating the decaying part of the tree for some distance 
below it. 
I have never been able to procure the eggs, although the bird is so comrnai 
The drawing represents a male and female of this Woodpecker. 
