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BIRDS this bird ever returns to the same nesting-hole seems doubtful, and where starlings are as numerous as they are here, the old hole is always taken by these birds and a new one is excavated by the yaffle. When once the hole has been made, the woodpeckers are not easily driven away. I once enlarged a hole sufficiently to admit my own arm, only to find the eggs had not been deposited, but on visiting the spot a fortnight later I took six fresh eggs. Not long after another six were laid and successfully hatched in the same hole. 90. Great Spotted Woodpecker. Dendrocopus major (Linn.). Locally, Pied Woodpecker, French Wood- pecker. Fairly common in the wooded districts. I have often found its eggs near Wargrave ; it also breeds annually near Maidenhead, Wind- sor and Reading, but becomes rarer in the north-west of the county. From close obser- vation with a glass, I am perfectly convinced that the 'jarring' noise produced in the spring by this species and the next to be mentioned is made by blows repeated with such rapidity that the head seems blurred to the spectator. The noise is never produced on a solid part of the tree, but a rotten or hollow portion is required as a kind of sounding-board. 91. Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. Dendrocopus minor (Linn.). Locally, Little French Woodpecker, Barred Woodpecker. Resident, and far more common than is generally supposed, for it loves the highest trees, and is often overlooked in consequence. A nest or so may be found at Park Place most years, and it also breeds near Windsor, Reading, Maidenhead, in old alders by the Thames, while its eggs have been taken at Cothill (Fauna and Flora of Radley and Neighbourhood, p. 10). [Great Black Woodpecker. Picus martlus, Linn. The admission of this bird to the British list rests on somewhat slender basis (see Mr. J. H. Gurney's criticism in Dresser's Birds of Europe, v. 13-14), and I give the following for what it is worth from Clark Kennedy's Birds of Berks and Bucks (p. 178). In April, 1 844, one seen for several consecutive days in Home Park, Windsor, by Mr. Walter. In March, 1867, one seen by Clark Kennedy in Ditton Park, who states that he was suffici- ently near to identify the bird with certainty. A far more satisfactory notice is that sent by Capt. Savile G. Reid to the Zoologist for March, 1888 (p. 107), in which he mentions a great black woodpecker seen by Capt. Coleridge in his garden at Twyford. He says : ' Capt. Coleridge got within twenty yards of the bird ; he is well acquainted with all our common British birds and knows the other woodpeckers perfectly well ; he is also most unlikely to have made a mistake on this occasion, as his father's collection, familiar to him from boyhood, contained two stuffed specimens of D. martius.'] 92. Kingfisher. Alcedo ispida, Linn. The kingfisher is common, and perhaps increasing since shooting on the Thames was stopped by Act of Parliament. The banks of the river and chalk cliffs are a favourite site for its nest, but I have found one in a hole in a small pit 2 yards square, and another in a wood quite a mile from water. The old idea that this bird makes a nest of fish bones is erroneous : the eggs are laid on the bare earth, and the fish bones are thrown up whilst the bird is sitting. 93. Hoopoe. Upupa epops, Linn. A not very uncommon visitor, and I have some evidence, though not quite conclusive, that it has bred in our county. Four birds were met with near Reading and Wallingford in the spring of 1700, one of which was kept alive for some time fed on mealworms (' Ornith. Bercheria '). Clark Kennedy (Birds of Berks and Bucks, p. 179-80) has recorded the following occurrences: (i) One killed in the autumn of 1864 near Spital Barracks and another seen in Windsor Great Park by the same observer ; (2) one shot by Mr. J. P. Franklin about June 18, 1867, at Wallingford ; (3) another obtained near Cookham by Dr. R. B. Sharpy ; and (4) one near Aldermaston at the beginning of the last century by Mr. Congreve. Many years ago a bird of this species was shot at Park Place by the keeper Hiscock (C. E. Stubbs, MS.). More recently one was seen near Wellington College, in June, 1864 (Wellington College Natural History Report] ; one killed near Newbury on April 23, 1866, and another at East Ilsley in August, 1877 (W. H. Herbert, Newbury District Field Club, pp. 97, 250) ; Mr. Dover of Ilsley shot one in 1883, and another was killed by Mr. Cundell of Ramsbury in 1874 ('Birds of Newbury and District'). Mr. Phillips mentions a last example shot at East- hampstead on Easter Monday, 1895 a very fine specimen.