The movements of the Harlequin Woodpecker are brisk and active, and as regards its climbing powers it fully equals any member of its family already described. Towards men it exhibits the utmost confidence, but lives in a state of almost perpetual warfare with its feathered companions. During the breeding season, which commences in May, the male makes himself very conspicuous by the constant utterance of his shrill monotonous cry and his restless activity in contending with supposed rivals, or in his struggles to keep off the inroads of other males upon his chosen nesting-place. This latter spot is always at a considerable height from the ground, in an old oak or lofty fruit tree, whose decayed trunk can be readily penetrated by the beaks of the building pair. The recess bored for the reception of the young is six inches deep, and is entered by an aperture as perfectly circular in form as if it had been cut with a centre-bit. Many of these holes are frequently commenced and abandoned before the requirements of the fastidious parents are satisfied. The brood consists of from five to seven brilliantly white eggs, occasionally sparsely sprinkled with fine red spots. The young are hatched within a fortnight by the united exertions of both birds, and are nourished and tended for a considerable time after they have left the nest. The food of this species appears to consist exclusively of insects, as even during the winter months we have found nothing else in its stomach. Ants, spiders, beetles, and insects' eggs it consumes in enormous quantities, and renders inestimable service to the gardener by the countless hosts of destroying insects which it gleans from fruit-trees of every description. Bechstein gives the following account of an attempt to tame the _Picus medius_, a closely-allied species. "I have," he says, "seen one of these Woodpeckers, which was reared by a lady and seemed much attached to her; it had learned to leave its cage and return, knocking hard at the window if shut out. It was very amusing to see it climbing nimbly over its mistress till it had reached her mouth. It then asked her, by light strokes of the wing, for the food she was accustomed to give it; this was generally a little meat. It disappeared one day, without any one knowing what had befallen it." THE THREE-TOED WOODPECKER.