It was on a 13th of April, that, having spent some hours in the woods, to no purpose, I at length climbed the hill, up which they ran, and came out upon a smooth slope of turf, from which I had a good view down amongst the trees, which did not grow very thickly. As I emerged, I saw a woodpecker feeding on the grass, and shortly afterwards two, pursuing each other, flew down upon it, from the wood, but, seeing me, flew back again. It instantly struck me that here was an ideal spot to study the habits of these birds. A penetrable wood which was evidently haunted by them, to look down into, an open down right against it, and good cover, from which I had an equally good view of both. I, therefore, ensconced myself, and soon had the pleasure of making some observations new to myself, and, as far as I know, to ornithology. These two same birds that I had startled pursued each other about amidst the trees, for some time, uttering not only their usual cry—unusually loud as I thought—but another, of one note, quickly repeated, like “too, too, too, too, too,” changing, at the end, or becoming modulated, into “too-i, too-i, too-i, too-i, too-i.” All at once two other ones flew out from the enclosure, and, alighting together upon the greensward, a curious play, which I took to be of a nuptial character, commenced between them. They both half extended the wings, at the same time drooping them on to the ground, and standing thus, fronting each other, they swung not only their heads, but the upper part of their bodies, strenuously from side to side, in a very excited manner. If there was any upshot to this, I did not see it, as the birds shifted a little so as to become hidden by a ridge, and the next I saw of them was when they flew away. A little while after this, I saw either the same or another pair of green woodpeckers, pursuing each other from tree to tree, and, all at once, they closed together, in the air, as though in combat; almost immediately, however, separating again and flying to different trees. Soon they came down on to the turf, and were probing it for ants, when one of them, desisting from this occupation, went close up to the other—they had been near before—and, again, went through the action which I have just described. Now, I saw that it was a hostile demonstration, but the bird against whom it was directed seemed in no hurry to respond to it, and merely went on feeding. At length, however, he turned, and went through with it also, and the two then fought, jumping and pecking at one another. It was not, however, a very bloody combat. It seemed, I thought, rather half-hearted, and I particularly noted that the bird which had been challenged soon left off, and began to feed again, on which his opponent desisted also, making no attempt to take him at a disadvantage, which, it seemed, he could easily have done, any more than he had in the first instance.

This chasing and coming down on to the grass, to feed and skirmish, continued during the afternoon, but there were two fights which were of a fiercer and more interesting character. I have spoken, before, of these woodpeckers’ upright attitude, when they fronted each other, swinging their heads from side to side. This, however, was not at all the case here. Instead of standing upright, they sat crouched—almost lay—on the ground, with their wings half-spread out upon it, and in this position—beak to beak—they jerked their heads in the most vivacious manner, each one seeming to meditate a deadly spear-thrust. Then there were some quick mutual darts, of a very light and graceful nature, and, at last, each seizing hold of the other’s beak, they pulled, tugged, jumped, and dragged one another about, with the greatest violence. One might suppose that each bird sought to use his own beak as a weapon of offence, in the usual manner, and seized his adversary’s, as it were, to disarm him, and that, then, each tried to disengage, but was held by the other. In the second and still more violent encounter, however, I noticed a very curious feature. After the first light fencing, the birds seemed to lock beaks gently, as though by a mutual intention to do so, and, indeed, so markedly was this the case that, for a moment, I thought I must have been mistaken, and that, instead of two males, they were male and female. Then, the instant they had interlocked them, they set to pulling, with a sudden violence, as though the real serious business had now commenced. They pulled, tugged, and struggled most mightily, and each bird was, several times, half pulled and half thrown over the other’s back, springing up into the air, at the same time, but neither letting go, nor being let go of. There was a good bout of this before they became separated, after which some fierce pecks were delivered.

As with some other actions, performed by various birds, when fighting, so, here, with these woodpeckers, I believe that the locking of the bills has been such a constant result of the necessities of the case, that it has now passed, or is passing, into a formal thing, without which the duel could hardly be fought. The birds lock them—so it seems to me—almost as we put on boxing-gloves, or take the foils, and, after this, tug and pull, not so much with the object of getting free, as because this has become their idea of fighting. The fight, in fact, must proceed in a formal routine, and without this, either combatant is at a loss. How else is it that neither bird seems able to begin the fight unless the other fronts him, nor to take—as I have noticed in other cases—an advantage of his adversary, by springing upon him, unawares? In the first combat, for instance, the one bird fed quietly, whilst the other moved his head in the orthodox manner, just beside him, and it was not till the feeding one responded, by doing the same, that hostilities went further. Equally apparent was it that the challenged bird felt himself quite safe, as long as he did not take the matter up, by going through the established form. Again, this throwing of the head from side to side, which seems to represent the attempt of either combatant to avoid the beak of his adversary, has, likewise, become more or less stereotyped, for not only may the one bird act in this way, whilst the other is feeding, as we have just seen, but even when both do, as we shall see directly, they may be at such a distance from one another as to make the action a quite useless one. On the other hand, when the two stand beak to beak, and commence a spirited fight, in this manner, the object and rationale of the movement seems as obvious as it can be. We see, here, the swords actually crossed, whilst, in the other cases, the birds fence at a distance, or the one without the other, and this is so obviously formal, that, for myself, I doubt the motive of the same movement, even where it seems most apparent. What I last saw will, still further, illustrate these points. A woodpecker that had been quietly feeding by itself, at some distance from any other one, began, all at once, to move its head about in this way, in a very excited manner, and to utter a little, sharp, twittering cry, being one note several times repeated. I then saw that another woodpecker was advancing towards him, with precisely similar gestures, though, as yet, he was a good way off. As he came nearer, the threatened bird first retreated, and then, again, returned, until the two stood fronting one another, some two or three feet apart, continuing, all the while, to swing and jerk—for it is a combination of the two—their heads and bodies to this side and that, as in every other instance. Thus they continued, for some little time, neither increasing nor decreasing the distance between them, after which there were several half retreats, whereby the one bird, passing the other obliquely, exposed itself to a flank attack, its beak being turned away. This, however, was never taken advantage of by the other, and, finally, the more timid of the two made a low flight over the grass, to some distance, thus declining the combat. Some other odd motions and contortions were exhibited by these birds, but they were occasional, and, I think, unimportant, whereas the main one was constant, and the keynote of all. In this last instance, as at the first, both birds held themselves upright, with their heads thrown up, which gave them a half absurd, and wholly indescribable appearance.

We see, in these cases, a certain fighting action, which can only be of use when the birds are at the closest quarters—in actual contact, that is to say—performed, either by both of them, when at a considerable distance one from another, or by one only, when the other is paying no attention to, or does not even see him. How shall we define such an action, performed in such a way? To me it appears to be a formal one—so much a necessity, that is to say, under a certain mental stimulus, that its original end and object is becoming merged in the satisfaction felt by the bird in going through with it. It is on the way to becoming an ultimate end, instead of only a proximate one. Intelligence would lapse in such a process, but it might revive again, as I believe, under the influence of natural selection. I should record, however, in connection with the above remarks, that at the end of the most violent fight the bills of the birds became disengaged. It then became more of a rough and tumble—a pa???at???—between them, and I noticed that one did, then, dart upon and peck the other, from behind. In other cases, too, I have remarked that when fighting birds once close and grapple, formality is at an end. What has struck me as peculiar, is the way in which they will not close, but seem content to make, over and over again, certain movements that have an oddly stereotyped and formal appearance. Here, as it appears to me, we see the hardening of the surface of the lava-stream, above the molten fluid beneath. Through this cooled crust the latter must be reached; but the lava-stream may become all crust, and the battle lose itself in formality.

The time during which I watched from my bush, and in which all these doings were included, was about four hours—from 3, or thereabouts, to 7 namely—and during the whole of it, woodpeckers, when not thus fighting, fed quietly upon the greensward, probing and hammering it with their bills for the ants. What a terrible calamity to fall upon thousands of such little intellectual entities! Fancy the same sort of thing happening to ourselves—a monster, of landscape proportions, trundling down London, say, or Pekin, and englutting everybody—philosophers and cricketers, honest men and thieves, quiet peaceable people and Cabinet Ministers—dozens at a time! Would that change our ideas, at all, I wonder? Would it modify popular conceptions of the Deity? Would it make optimists less assured, pessimists less “shallow”? Or would it do nothing? Would Tennyson, till he was gobbled, still go on “trusting”? and would the very thing itself, that appeared so all wrong, be taken as evidence that it was, really, all right? This last, I feel sure, would be the case. How many a song has been sung to that old, old tune, and what a mass of such “evidence” there is! Historians are never tired of it—the Hunnish invasion, the end of the Peloponnesian war, the conquest of everybody by Rome, and then, again, the conquest of Rome by everybody: all right, all for the best, if you start with being an optimist, that is to say, with a cheerful constitution—a good thing, certainly, but mistaken by many for a good argument. True it is that disasters, almost, or even quite, as great as the above, do sometimes overtake humanity, upon this earth of ours; but they are, both, less frequent, as I suppose, than with the ants, and the great difference is, that, with us, there is no woodpecker, its part being taken by inanimate nature, or by ourselves, to whom we are partial. Yet I know not why a scheme that is well for one, or for a few only, should be thought a good scheme, all through, and the reason why we, as a species, are not as ants to woodpeckers, is not that nature is too pitiful, but that we are too strong, and woodpeckers not strong enough—which is not a satisfactory reason.

An eminent naturalist and spiritualist thinks that immortality (of one species only, apparently) with eternal progress, would justify all, and turn seeming wrong into right. For myself, I cannot see how one single pang, upon this earth, can ever be justified, seeing that, on any adequate conception of a deity, it both never need, and never ought to have been felt. This very progress, too, with which we are to comfort ourselves, must be accompanied with—indeed is made dependent upon—great, almost infinite, suffering, lasting through enormous periods of time. The sin-seared soul does, indeed, rise, at last, and become purified—but through what? Through the horrible tortures of remorse. That, no doubt, is better than another view. It is the best, perhaps, that can be conceived of, things being as we know them to be. It makes the best of a bad job—but there is still the bad job. The eternal stumbling-block of evil and misery remains. If these need not have been, where is all-goodness, seeing that they are? If they need, where, then, is infinite power, and where, without it, is justice? I do not say that these questions cannot be satisfactorily answered (though I think they never will be by us, here), but I say that the spiritualistic doctrine does not answer them. Numbers of other difficulties, more graspable by our reason, appear to me to attend the conception of spiritual progress, and especially of spiritual suffering, in a future state, as taught by many spiritualists—say by the late Stainton-Moses; but perhaps a discussion of these does not, strictly speaking, fall within the province of field natural history.

Revenons À nos moutons, therefore. The green woodpecker, we have now seen, both fights and has a marked manner of doing so, which seems better adapted to the ground than to trees, where one would, prim facie, have expected its combats to take place. The birds stand directly fronting one another, but to do this upon a tree-trunk, or a branch that sloped at all steeply, they would have to stand, or rather cling, sideways, since they never—that is to say, I have never seen them—descend head downwards, though they do backwards, or backward-sideways, with ease. Such duels, therefore, as I have here described, would have to be fought upon a horizontal branch, but neither would this, perhaps, be very convenient, or much in accordance with the bird’s habits. The ground alone—especially the greensward—would seem quite suitable for such tourneys, and since they are sometimes held there, the probability, to my mind, is that they always, or nearly always, are. Nor is this all, for the nuptial rite itself is performed by these woodpeckers upon the ground—a strange thing, surely, in a bird belonging to so arboreal a family. Here, again, I will describe what I have seen, for, the next day, I came to watch in the same place, getting there about 7 in the morning, from before which time—for they were there when I came—up to 8.30, when I left, three or four birds—the same ones doubtless—fed quietly on the green. In the afternoon I came again, and whilst watching one that was still feeding busily, another flew down, some way off it, and after considering the ways of the ant, for a little, and being wise in regard to them, came up in a series of rapid hops and short pauses, till just in front of the feeding bird—a male—when she crouched down, and pairing took place. It was accompanied—at least I think so—by a peculiar guttural note, uttered either by one or both the birds. Some time afterwards I again saw this. I am not sure whether it was the same pair of birds as before, but the actions and relative parts played by the male and female were the same. In either case the male was the more indifferent of the two, and had to be courted, or rather solicited, by the female—a fact which I have noted in various birds, and which does not appear to me to accord very well with that universal law of nature, as laid down by Hunter and endorsed by Darwin, that the male is more eager, and has stronger passions than, the female. No doubt this is the rule, but the exceptions or qualifications of it do not seem to me to have received sufficient attention. These woodpeckers could not have been long mated—except that in my opinion they mate for life—since the males were fighting desperately only the day before.

Let the fighting of male birds be ever so strong evidence of their sexual desires, yet the actual solicitation of either sex by the other must, surely, be a stronger one, and this, as we have just seen, is not always on the side of the male. Darwin gives several instances of female birds courting the male, contrary to the general rule in the species to which they belonged, and many more might be collected. Amongst pigeons it is not an unknown thing for married happiness to be disturbed by the machinations of a wanton hen: the male gull is often quite pestered by the affectionate behaviour of the female: and at the very same time that the male eider-ducks are constantly fighting, and often quite mob the females, one may see one of these females go through quite frantic actions, on the water, first before one male, and then another, which actions, though they seem to point all in one direction, yet meet with no response. Yet the eider-duck is one of those birds the male of which is highly adorned, and the female quite plain. There is, I think, a strong tendency to ignore or forget things which are not in harmony with what seems a plain, straightforward law, that one has never thought of doubting. But every fact ought to be noted and its proper value accorded it. The sexual relations of birds are, I think, full of interest, and it is, particularly, in regard to those species, the sexes of which are alike, or nearly so, that these ought to be studied. There is a distinct reason, as it appears to me, why, in the contrary case, the males should be the more eager, which reason does not exist in the other, and it is just in this other, where one cannot, as a rule, in field observation, tell the male from the female, that it is most difficult to know what really goes on. Fighting amongst male birds, in whatever fact—physical or psychological—it may have originated, is, in itself, distinct from the sexual passion, and in it, moreover, a large amount of energy is expended. It seems just possible, therefore, that some male birds, as they have become more and more habitual fighters, have, owing to that very cause, lost, rather than gained, in the strength of the primary sexual impulse, whereas the female, having nothing to divert her from this, may be, really, more amorous, and more the wooer, sometimes, than one thinks. No doubt this would, in time, lead to fighting amongst the females too, and I have seen two hen blackbirds fight most desperately, on account of a cock that stood by. Rival women, however, do not fight, and the same general principle might show itself amongst birds, the hens contending, rather, with enticements, allurings, and general assiduity, which, again, need not pass into a formal display. Eagerness, in fact, might show itself in a way more consonant with the feminine constitution, and therefore less easy to observe.

Be all this as it may, the female woodpecker, in the above two instances, was certainly the agente provocatrice. I saw no more fighting, either on this day, or afterwards. It seemed as though I had been just in time to see the birds’ mating arrangements settled. But since these woodpeckers go in pairs, during the winter, and build, each year, in the same tree, they must, I think, be assumed to mate for life. Why, therefore, should the males fight, each spring?—and the same question may be asked in regard to hundreds of other birds. Does not this, in itself, go to show that such fighting may not always stand in such direct relation to the sexual passions as one is accustomed to think that it does? But to leave questions and come to facts, the habits of our green woodpecker are, already, very different, in several by no means unimportant respects, from those of the family to which it belongs. Its general—and in some parts of the country, as I believe, its almost exclusive—diet is, now, ants, which it procures on the ground, by digging into their nests. As the ants are too small for it to hold in its bill, it is obliged to swallow them, and this has led to its feeding the young by a process of regurgitation, as does the nightjar, owing, I believe, to a similar reason. In the breeding season the males become pugnacious, and fight in a specialised manner, also on the ground, and here, too, the marriage rite is consummated. From this to laying the eggs in a hole, or depression, of the earth—a rabbit-burrow, for instance, as does the stockdove, though still sometimes building in trees, as it, no doubt, once always did—does not appear to me to be a very far cry, and I believe that, if trees were to disappear in our island, the green woodpecker, instead of disappearing with them, would stay on, as a ground-living species, entirely. On one point of the bird’s habits I have not yet satisfied myself. Does it pass the entire night, clinging, perpendicularly, to the trunk of a tree—sleeping like this? From what I have seen, I believe it does, and this, sometimes, without the support of its tail. But I am not sure, and should like to make sure. How I should love to watch a pair of green woodpeckers, settled, for the night, on their two trees—as I have seen them resting—till darkness made it no longer possible to do so, and then to creep silently away, and come as silently again, before daylight, on the following morning! How sweet to steal, thus innocently, upon their “secure hour”: to see them commence the day: to watch their first movements: to hear their first cries to each other: to sit and see the darkness slowly leave them, till a grey something grew into a bird, and then another, both clinging there in the very same place and position you had left them in overnight! Then to watch them off; and returning, once more, on the same afternoon, well in time, to see if they came back to the same trees, or not! To be able to do this—and a few other things of this sort—without a world of cares to distract one—