Cock Builders
It seemed to me a curious and unexampled freak that a green wood- pecker (as reported by a Sussex rector) should so loudly and persistently
hammer at the oak tiles of a church as to distract the congregation ; but it seems that the bird likes oak tiles on churches in other shires. Two other examples are reported. One is from Thursley near Godalming, where a good deal of damage has been done. A good ornithologist tells me of a second example in Worcestershire. He has made a special study of woodpeckers, as I know, for a great many years, partly because they insist on nesting close to his house. He seems to have proved a fact— new, I think, to ornithology—that only the male bird drives nesting holes. The hen bird, either wholly or in great part, abstains from such a rough male occupation. How widely different species of bird differ in this regard. The cock wren has a passion for building nests, even uselesg successions of them, while the cock blackbird lends a beak only as an occasional whim. As for sparrows, a cock bird was seen to pull a whole completed nest dow s because he was annoyed by one projecting straw.
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