Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/227

Rh triumphantly pointed out a Great Black Woodpecker, shot just at the hole, and still clinging to the bark with its claws. It was the male, and its mouth and throat were found to be crammed full of ants; the latter being distended with them gave it a very grotesque appearance. The hole was about twenty feet from the ground, square at the bottom, but concave at the top, and about four inches across. About twenty-two inches deep were four well-grown young, which would probably have been flying in a couple of weeks. Two of them had incipient red feathers down to the base of the bill, and two with them only on the occiput, so the sexes were probably divided. The female was shot in the evening, as she tarried disconsolately near the place. The irides are a pale yellow. At Grut we procured the skin of a female killed there last season, and in a thick birch-branch near Fokstuen, on June 7th, we found a hole evidently, by its peculiar shape, dug out by this species, the other Woodpeckers all drilling a round one.

Green Woodpecker. Gecinus viridis.—Not fifty yards from the tree last described we saw a round hole, about thirty feet from the ground, in another big pine. The ladder was fetched, but unfortunately was too short; however, it was reared straight up against the tree, fastened firmly round the trunk at the top, so as not to slip, and mounted by the writer, who, having wedged his legs in the topmost rungs, commenced the operation of enlargement with hammer and chisel. The position was so awkward that, to get through the one inch and a half of sound wood and the two inches of rotten, took above two hours' hard work, but the seven fresh eggs laid on the bare wood inside, eighteen inches below the hole, were sufficient compensation for cramped legs and half-broken back. Whilst this was going on, first the female and then the male Green Woodpecker came jarring to the top of a neighbouring tree, and were both shot. The irides were pinkish.

Great Spotted Woodpecker. Picus major.—Two were seen in the same wood in which we got the Goshawk, and on the same day. May 19th.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. Picus minor.—Not observed till we reached Fokstuen, where several were shot in the early part of June. On the 6th a nest of four eggs was taken from a hole in a small birch; they were quite fresh.

Three-toed Woodpecker. Picoides tridactylus.—A male was shot on June 6th in the birch-wood near Fokstuen.