78 GREEN WOODPECKER. 
so incessantly repeated, that the head can hardly be perceived 
to move; and the sound of the ‘Woodpecker tapping the 
hollow beech tree,’ may be distinctly heard, it is said, at a 
distance of half a mile. 
The eggs, four or five, to six or eight in number, are bluish 
white in colour. In the ‘Zoologist,’ page 2229, Alfred Newton, 
Esq. mentions his having met with five eggs of this bird in 
a nest at Elvedon, near Thetford, Norfolk, which were blotted 
and spotted with reddish brown and tawny yellow; and at 
page 2301, he speaks of having been informed of two other 
similar instances, one or both of them, in the same neigh- 
bourhood. 
The young are hatched in June. The parents are sedulously 
devoted to them, and, when fully fledged, they all quit together 
in company. 
Male; length, one foot one inch and a half; bill, black, or 
bluish black, the base of the lower part being nearly white; 
from its corner a black streak runs downwards, the middle 
part being brilliant red, the feathers grey at the base; iris, 
greyish white, with a faint tinge of yellow; it is surrounded 
by a black space, part in fact of the streak; black bristles 
surround the base of the bill. Forehead, jet black; head, on 
the sides, greenish white; crown, brilliant red, running down- 
wards to a point brighter than the rest; neck, on the sides, 
greyish green, on the back and the nape, greenish yellow; 
chin, as the breast; throat, brownish white; breast, yellowish 
grey, with a tinge of green; back, above greenish yellow, 
below yellow. 
The wings reach nearly to half the length of the tail; the 
first feather is very short, the fourth and fifth the longest 
in the wing; greater and lesser wing coverts, yellowish green; 
primaries, greyish black, spotted with faint yellowish white 
square spots along the outer web, and the inner half of the 
inner one, with round ones, the tips not spotted; secondaries 
and tertiaries, green on the outer web, and greyish black 
spotted with dull white on the inner one, most dull towards 
the primaries; greater and lesser under wing coverts, dusky 
and greyish white, in bars, and rows of spots, the whole 
tinged with greenish yellow. The tail, of twelve feathers, is 
barred with dull greyish white, or greenish white, and dull 
greyish black; it is long, stiff, and poimted, the two middle 
feathers being the longest, the others graduated; they are 
grooved underneath; beneath it is dusky, with bars of greyish 
