THE GREEN WOODPECKER - 129 
THE LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER 
DEUDROCOPUS MINOR 
Forehead and lower parts dirty white; crown bright red; nape, back, and 
wings black, with white bars; tail black, the outer feathers tipped with 
white and barred with black; iris red. Length five inches and ahalf; 
breadth twelve inches. Eggs glossy white. 
TuIs handsome little bird resembles its congeners so closely, both 
in structure and habits, that it scarcely needs a lengthened descrip- 
tion. Resident in England but rare in Scotland and Ireland, owing 
to its fondness for high trees and its small size it often escapes 
notice. It lays its eggs on the rotten wood, which it has either 
pecked, or which has fallen, from the holes in trees; they are not 
to be distinguished from those of the Wryneck. Lately (1908) a 
Scottish newspaper recorded the shooting of “that rare species, 
the Spotted Woodpecker!” ‘The man with the gun” is in- 
curable. 
THE GREEN WOODPECKER 
GECINUS VIRIDIS 
Upper plumage green; under, greenish ash; crown, back of the head, and 
moustaches crimson; face black. Female—less crimson on the head ; 
moustaches black. Length thirteen inches; breadth twenty-one inches. 
Eggs glossy white. 
OnE of the most interesting among the natural sounds of the 
country, is that of the 
Woodpecker tapping the hollow beech tree: 
yet one may walk through the woods many times and hear no tap- 
ping at all, and even if such a sound be detected and traced to its 
origin, it will often be found to proceed from the Nuthatch, who has 
wedged a hazel-nut into the bark of an oak, than from the hammer- 
ing of a Woodpecker. Yet often indeed it may be observed ascend- 
ing, by a series of starts, the trunk of a tree, inclining now a little 
to the right, and now to the left, disappearing now and then on the 
side farthest from the spectator, and again coming into view some- 
what higher up. Nor is its beak idle; this is employed sometimes 
in dislodging the insects which lurk in the rugged bark, and some- 
times in tapping the trunk in order to find out whether the wood 
beneath is sound or otherwise. Just as a carpenter sounds a wall 
with his hammer in order to discover where the brickwork ends 
and where lath and plaster begin, so the Woodpecker sounds the 
wooden pillar to which it is clinging, in order to discover where the 
B.B. K 
