The Green Woodpecker {Picus viridus) 



By W. Leon Dawson 



Nature has appointed the woodpeckers conservators of the wood of old trees, furnished 

 them admirably for their office, and so formed their habits, that an old tree is an Eden to 

 them, fraught with safety, and redolent of plenty and fatness. 



— Robert Mudie. 



Not unlike its relatives in our own country, the beautiful Green Woodpecker 

 of foreign lands finds in a tree "a castle, a pasture, a larder, a nursery, an 

 alarm-drum and a lute." It frequents the ancient forests of Europe, Asia, where 

 it is even found to some extent in the intemperate climate of Siberia, and in 

 northern Africa. As it is a bird of wide distribution, found in many countries 

 and known to all classes of people, it has been given many common names. Space 

 forbids an enumeration of all of these names, but a few of the more common 

 ones may be mentioned. Some of them, such as Hewhole, Pick-a-tree, Awl-bird 

 and Nickapecker, are eminently suggestive of the birds' habits, and the names 

 High Hoe, Popinjay, Yoppingall and Whittle are not without meaning. 



The Green Woodpecker is quite frequently called the Rain-bird, or Rain- 

 fowl, for it is very active and quite noisy as the "droughts begins to soften," a 

 short time before a shower. At this time its harsh note, which has been described 

 as sounding like "glu' glu' glu, gluck," is much more in evidence. It is natural 

 that this bird should be more active as the moisture increases, for in the time 

 of long drought the plant tissues are more or less hardened by the evaporation 

 of the liquids confined wdthin them and many insects, especially those that live 

 in woody tissues, are less active or many remain quiescent. Happy indeed is the 

 bird when the accumulating moisture awakens the activities of the plant, softens 

 its tissues and thus enabled the insects to again seek food. "The insects and 

 the worms come out; the birds feed; new life returns; the tuned instrument is 

 soon in use; the groves are in song the livelong night." There are a number of 

 the insect-eating birds that seem to augur the coming rain by increased activity, 

 especially after a long dry season, and some of these have also been called 

 rain-birds. 



In parts of England this Woodpecker is called Yaffle or Yaffil, because to 

 some people its notes sound like a laugh. The poet has referred to this in the 

 following lines : 



The sky-lark in ecstacy sang from a cloud, 



The chanticleer crow'd and the Yaffil laugh'd loud. 



Another popular name, but one that is used with less frequency, is Wood- 

 spite. The first word of this name has reference to the green color of the foliage 

 of the woods it frequents. The word spite is probably a modification of the 

 German word specht — a woodpecker. It has also been suggested that this name 

 may have arisen from the vigorous strokes of the bird's bill against the tree 

 appearing like an exhibition of spite. 



Like other members of the woodpecker family, the bird of our illustration 



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