138 PICID.E. 



and the meaning of the Wooclpecker's name are, therefore, 

 sufficiently obvious : — whytel, whittle, "vvhetile, woodhaclver. 



The terms Woodwele, Woodwale, Woodwall, and Wit- 

 wall, "which are only modifications of the same word, are 

 generally considered to refer to one of the species of our 

 English Woodpeckers, but to which, or, I may add, if to 

 either, there is some doubt. Willughby and Ray apply the 

 name of Witwall to the Greater Black and White, or 

 Greater Spotted Woodpecker ; and in the New Forest, 

 Hampshire, at the present day, this same bird is called 

 Woodwall, Woodwale, Woodnacker, and Woodpie. The 

 word occurs occasionally in old ballads : — 



" The Woodwele sang and would not cease, 

 Sitting upon the spraye, 

 So loud he wakened Robin Hood 

 In the green wood where he lay. 



Ritson''s edition of Robin Hood^ vol. i. p. 115. 



" In many places Nightingales, 

 And Alpes* and Finches and Woodwales." 



Chaucer, Rom, of the Rose. 



" There the Jay and the Throstell, 

 The Mavis menyd in her song, 

 The Woodwale farde or beryd as a bell 

 That wode about me rung." 



True Thomas. 



In the glossary to the work first quoted, the Woodwele is 

 thus described : — " The Golden Ouzle, a bird of the Thrush 

 kind. P." The initial P. is probably intended to refer to 

 the works of Pliny. In the English portion of Ainsworth's 

 Dictionary, the corresponding term for Witwall is vireo ; 

 and Dr. William Turner, an English physician, and an 

 accurate observer of birds, who wrote in the time of Henry 

 the Eighth, makes vireo to be the Golden Oriole, including 

 in his synonymes the Greek word Chlorion, also in reference 

 to colour, and the German names Wittwol and Weidwail ; 



* An old name for the Bullfinch. 



