LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 85 
umberland one was killed near Newcastle, in the month of 
January, 1829. In Orkney one was shot by Mr. Low, near 
Stromness, in the winter of 1774; and another was observed 
at Sanday, on the 14th. of October, 1823. 
Like the rest of its race, nay, like the rest of another 
race, the great object of this bird is to get to the ‘top of 
the tree. Its motive, however—more than can be always 
said in the other case—is only a laudable one—to procure 
its necessary food: it sometimes perches on the topmost 
branch. It more peculiarly affects the apple, plum, beech, 
and elm; but not by any means exclusively. 
The Little Woodpecker is of a morose disposition, and 
prefers its own company: excepting while the young birds 
continue to require their parents’ fostermg care, more than 
two are not seen together, and even this number only in 
the breeding season. It is not at all a shy bird. Wooded 
districts are its natural and necessary resort. 
Its flight is undulated like that of its congeners, the wings 
being drawn close to the body, and then quickly flapped 
while extended. 
Its food consists of small insects and their larve, spiders 
and ants, which are generally procured from the branches of 
trees in the fields and orchards, and, abroad, in the vineyards; 
but occasionally on the ground. The mode of their capture 
is the same as in the case of the other species of the genus. 
It makes the same sort of jarrmg noise that the other 
Woodpeckers do, but of course in a ‘minor’ key. Its note, 
which is rather shrill and often repeated, but not frequently 
uttered while on the wing, resembles the syllables ‘keek, 
keek, keek, keek; and one of the sounds it makes is likened 
by the country people to that made by an augur in boring; 
hence one of its vernacular names. 
The nest, so to call it, is placed at the bottom of a hole 
in a tree, in some cases found ready made to its hand, and 
in others adapted by itself to its requirements. Sometimes 
more than one hole is either wholly or in part thus fashioned, 
though only one can be finally occupied. 
The eggs, generally five in number, are white: they are 
hatched in fourteen days. 
Male; weight, not quite five drachms; length, five inches 
and a half to six inches; bill, lead-coloured, black at the tip, 
rather weaker than in the other species, sharply ridged on the 
upper surface: from the corner of the bill a moustache pro- 
