Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/130

96 in oak-galls. Once or twice she was seen flying with one in her beak, and in one instance holding a twig several inches long, which she had just picked with the oak-gall attached to it, and which she afterwards dropped at my feet. Most of the galls on the ground had been halved very neatly, and, as some which I obtained for examination contained as many as six little white grubs, they were worth the trouble of opening.

23rd.—Wood-Pigeons arriving in swarms at Taverham, where there are extensive coverts (E.F. Penn), and a large increase noted at Keswick and other places; but of this more subsequently. Between the 17th and 27th Waxwings were reported from Lowestoft, Yarmouth, Filby, Burgh Castle, Hickling, Sidestrand, Cromer, and Sheringham; but the flight must have rapidly passed on, and does not seem to have been followed by others. By the end of the month they had got to Newmarket (W. Howlett).

4th.—Only one Spotted Woodpecker at Keswick now, but that remains constant to the same two fir-trees, which it is gradually stripping. There are at the present time three or four hundred Scotch fir-cones on the ground, all dropped by the Woodpecker, and nearly all from the same dead bough. Besides this, about twenty are jammed into the trunk of the tree, which, being a stone-pine, has interstices in the bark large enough to receive them. Although the Nuthatch does the same with nuts and seeds, I never detected it in Picus major before. In my last year's "Norfolk Notes " a description was given of a knob as big as a pea on the lower mandible of the nestling Green Woodpecker. I have since ascertained that the Greater Spotted Woodpecker also has this peculiar growth, but less developed, and it has also been detected by Mr. H. Noble in Gecinus sharpii; but what its object can be is difficult to divine. P. major is not an uncommon bird in Norfolk, and anyone may hear its rapid hammering, which is loudest in the spring, taking the place of the vocal love-song in other birds. It is much more seldom to be seen upon the ground than the Green Woodpecker, and is more of a fruit-eater, but does not feed on ants. I once had a nest in a plum-tree in my kitchen-garden, well within reach of the hand; another nest was in an alder, and a third one in a birch,