Burrowers It sometimes happens that rough plaster is decorated with
morsels of many flies. The Jenny wren will on occasion come into a room and secure quite a considerable meal by pecking at apparently bare plaster. The tits, however, are not seeking food and it may be not seeking even grit, which is necessary for most birds. They have the, instinctive restlessness of rabbits. Early every morning the • rabbits scratch little holes at the base of one particular tree and in one small rose-bed. They are burrowing animals, and the instinct to scratch (which is not confined to the lower animal l) demands exercise. So that most birds that build in holes are born peckers. They seem to pick like Shake- speare's young men in France " merely for wantonness." And that is all one can say about it. Reasons were sought in vain for the onslaught of woodpeckers (still in evidence) against creosoted telegraph poles, which must be free of insect food. The Herefordshire green woodpeckers were the worst offenders, but such onslaughts occurred also in Essex.
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