194 BIRDS. 



country, and its breeding in Scotland is extremely uncer- 

 tain. In this species the crown is black, the tail being 



conspicuously marked with white. It feeds 

 Great . 



Spotted ^11 insects, berries, and acorns ; and is wonder- 

 Wood- fully armed, like the rest of its tribe, for hunt- 

 pec er. .^_^^ ^^^ grubs out of their retreat in trees. 

 They all have the low-keeled breast-bone, enabling them 

 to hug the trunk closely ; the stiff, pointed tail-feathers 

 to support them, although the claws are already specially 

 modified to that end ; the powerful wedge-shaped bill for 

 exploring ; and, lastly, the wonderful extensile tongue, that 

 w^orks, as it were, on a powerful spring from the back of 

 the skull, and that is further connected with a salivary 

 gland and armed at the tip wdth recurved hooks. Of a 

 truth the insects have but a poor chance against such 

 odds, and the woodpecker is not likely to go short of a 

 meal wherever there are trees. These remarkable features 

 are common to all three woodpeckers, so that it will be 

 unnecessary to allude to them again. This woodpecker 

 usually hew^s the hole for its nest in some half-rotten 

 trunk, but occasionally spares itself some of the labour 

 by adapting to its rec|uirements a hole already in existence. 

 Unlike the marsh-tit, it rarely takes the trouble to remove 

 the telltale chips from the foot of the tree, ^f/f/s, 5 to 7, 

 I inch ; creamy white, without spots of any kind. 



The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is a much smaller 

 species than the last, which it otherwise greatly resembles 

 in both appearance and habits. Though by 

 Spotted rio means uncommon in the south of England, 

 Wood- in the home counties more especially, and 

 scarcely rare in the Midlands, it is rare in 

 Scotland and a strasirler to Ireland, there beins; at most 

 half-a-dozen authenticated records of its occurrence in the 

 latter country. It has the undula,ting flight of all the 

 woodpeckers, and, like them, is to be seen by the ex- 

 perienced stalker who, guided by the tapping on the bark 



