616 
BIRD-LIFE. 
bird always selects a tree decayed at the core, and 
chooses the place where a branch has broken off, or 
where there is a hole already partially formed, and yet 
it must labour long and assiduously to adapt it to its 
liking. The female does by far the principal part of the 
work. “ She first either makes or enlarges the entrance,” 
says my father, the result of whose observations has 
formed the basis of later descriptions, “ from the outside, 
until it has become large enough to admit of free ingress 
and egress; after this is effected the cavity inside is 
excavated, which operation is carried on with much skill 
and diligence. This is excessively difficult, on account 
of the little space the bird has to labour in: often the 
Woodpecker is so cramped for room that it can only dig- 
out an inch at a time; when working thus the sound of 
its blows are muffled, and the chips thrown out are very 
small; as soon, however, as a little more space is gained 
the pieces become larger: the largest chips at the foot of 
a slightly decayed pine, in which a Black Woodpecker 
had constructed her nest, measured only six inches in 
length by a quarter of an inch thick,—not a foot long, and 
one inch thick, as related by Bechstein. An immense 
amount of strength must have been required to detach 
even the pieces which I have just mentioned. What a 
large and powerful bird must that one be who could hack 
out pieces a foot long by an inch in width! 
“ The female only works at the nest during the fore¬ 
noon, and in the afternoon goes out to feed. After from 
ten to fourteen days hard labour, the excavation of the 
nest is completed: it measures fifteen inches in depth 
below the entrance, and eight inches in diameter, and is 
so beautifully finished as to be perfectly smooth and 
without a splinter on its surface. The bottom forms a 
