Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/220

Rh of its carpentry may be frequently heard, though a fair sight of its person is difficult to be obtained, as it dodges from side to side of the trunk or branch on which it happens to be, when an observer is near, with much cunning and address, taking care to keep on the farthest side. It does not confine itself, however, to the tall trees, for it occasionally alights on decayed pollards, as well as on the rails and posts of fences, where in the accumulated moss and lichen, or in the various holes and crevices, it finds a rich harvest of spiders, ants, small beetles, caterpillars, and other insects; while in the summer season it varies its bill of fare by stealing cherries, plums, and other fruit from the gardens. Bechstein asserts that it feeds also on oak and beech mast, nuts, and the seeds of the fir tree: and in confinement, on meat. In this country it is not, as far as we know, often kept as a cage bird, but the English translator of Bechstein gives the following interesting account of a Middle Spotted Woodpecker (Picus medius, .), a species very near akin to this:—"I have seen a Woodpecker of this species, which was reared by a lady, to whom it seemed very much attached. It had learned of itself to go and return, knocking hard at the window if it was shut out. It was very amusing to see it climbing nimbly over its mistress till it had reached her mouth; it then asked her by light strokes of its beak for the food which she was accustomed to give it; this was generally a little meat. It disappeared one day, without any one's knowing what accident had befallen it."

In the last edition of Pennant's "British Zoology," it is stated that this species, by putting