is not obliged to resort to such drastic measures. A series of vigorous taps on the bark under which insects are lurking usually frightens them to such an extent that they bolt from their hiding-places as hastily as men leave their habitations during an earthquake. When the insects expose themselves the woodpecker’s tongue comes into operation. This organ is a fly-paper of the most approved “catch-’em-alive-o” type. It is covered with a secretion as sticky as bird-lime. The insects it touches adhere to it, one and all are drawn into the woodpecker’s mouth, and forthwith gathered unto their fathers!

The nest is of the usual woodpecker type, that is to say, a cavity in the trunk or a thick branch of a tree, partially, at any rate, excavated by the bird. Although the chisel-like bill of the woodpecker can cut the hardest wood, the bird usually selects for the site of its nest a part of the tree where the internal wood is rotten. This, of course, means less work for the bird. The only hard labour it has then to perform is to cut through the sound external wood a neat, round passage leading to the decayed core. When once this is reached, little further effort is required.

Last year I spent a few days at Easter in the Himalayas, and there had leisure to watch a pair of pied woodpeckers at work on their nest. These birds were brown-fronted pied woodpeckers—Dendrocopus auriceps. Their nest was being excavated in the trunk of a large rhododendron tree, at a spot some thirty feet from the ground. When I first began to watch the birds the cock was at work. He confined his operations to a spot about four inches from the surface, so that, as he hammered away, his head, neck, and a part of his shoulders disappeared in the hole. His fore toes grasped the inside of the aperture, and his hind toes the bark of the tree. The wood at which he was working was sufficiently hard to cause the taps of his bill to ring out clearly. After I had been watching him for about ten minutes he flew off to a tree hard by and uttered a number of curious low notes. Then his spouse appeared and he caressed her. After this both birds flew off. A few seconds later the hen came to the nest hole and set to work. Her efforts were not directed to the part of the cavity at which the cock had been working. Her taps were at a spot deeper down, so that while at work her tail, although at right angles to her body, derived no support from the trunk. She was operating on soft wood, hence the tapping of her bill was scarcely audible. After working for about eight minutes she began to remove the chips of wood she had detached. This operation is performed so rapidly that it is apt to be overlooked. The bird plunges its head into the hollow, seizes some chips, draws out its head and jerks this violently to one side, usually to the right, and thus casts the chips over its shoulder.

After the hen had been at work for nearly ten minutes she flew away. Within one minute and a half of her departure the cock arrived on the scene, and at once set to work in a most business-like fashion. He now operated on the right side of the cavity, and not at the spot to which his wife had directed her attention. After working for exactly twenty-five minutes the cock flew off. Then for a fraction over ten minutes the hole was deserted. At the end of this time it was the cock who again appeared. He put in a spell of thirty-five minutes’ work, in the course of which he indulged in a “breather” lasting three minutes. I then went away, and returned nearly three hours later, by which time the work had advanced to such an extent that when a bird was excavating at the deepest part of the cavity only the tail and the tip of the wing were visible. I found that the habit of the birds was to cease working about 4 p.m. I do not know at what hour they commenced work.

Five days later the nest hole had attained such a size that the birds were able to turn round in it, and so now emerged head foremost. When throwing away the chips, the head of the bird would appear at the aperture with the beak full of chips and dispose of them with a jerk of the head. The head of a woodpecker at the entrance to its hole is a pretty sight, so bright and keen is its eye. The excavation of the nest from start to finish probably occupies from ten to fourteen days.

The yellow-fronted pied woodpecker sometimes selects as a nesting site a spot in a tree-trunk only a few inches above the level of the ground.

Some years ago my ignorance of this fact afforded me a rather amusing experience. I noticed a pied woodpecker with some insects in its bill. Obviously it was about to carry these to its young. As there was only one clump of about six trees in the vicinity the nest was necessarily in one of these. Having half an hour to spare, I determined to wait and discover the whereabouts of the nest. The sun was powerful, so I elected to squat in the shade close by the trunk of the smallest of the trees. I anticipated that the woodpecker would fly direct to its nest with the food. Birds that nest in holes are usually quite indifferent to the presence of man; instinct teaches them that their nest is in an inaccessible place. But, in this instance, the bird kept hopping about looking very distressed. Consequently, I came to the conclusion that its nest must be in the trunk of the tree near which I was crouching. I stood up and examined the trunk carefully, but found no signs of a nest. I again sat down and waited until the patience of the woodpecker should be exhausted, but it continued to hop about on a log of wood with the food in its beak and disgust plainly depicted in its face. At the end of half an hour I went off mystified. The following day I returned to the spot, and the first thing that caught my eye was the entrance to the woodpecker’s nest eight inches off the ground in the trunk by which I had sat on the previous day. I had then unwittingly been blocking the approach of the bird!

VII
A JHIL OUT OF SEASON

Even as every English seaside resort has its “season,” so is there for every Indian jhil a period of the year when it is thronged with avian visitors. At other times of the year the jhil, like the seaside town, is, comparatively speaking, deserted. The season of the jhil extends from October to April—a term long enough to turn the average lodging-house keeper green with envy! During the winter months the jhils of Northern India are full to overflowing with ducks, geese, coots, pelicans, cormorants, and waders of every length of leg. As the weather grows hot, the majority of these take to their wings and hie themselves to cooler climes, where they enter upon the joyous toil of rearing up their families. Thus, from May to September, the permanent residents hold undisputed possession of the jhil. The number of these permanent residents is considerable, so that a jhil, even in the rains, when it contains most water, has not the forlorn appearance of, let us say, Margate in winter.

It is very pleasant during a short break in the rains to visit a jhil late in the afternoon, especially if a breeze be blowing. The sky presents a panorama of clouds of the most varied and fantastic shapes, to which the setting sun imparts hues wonderful and beautiful. The slanting rays are reflected and refracted from cloud to cloud, so that not infrequently there appear to be two suns behind the clouds, a major one setting in the west and a minor one sinking to the eastern horizon. The earth below is very beautiful. It is clothed in a mantle of green of every hue, from the vivid emerald of the young rice crop to the dark bluish green of