GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 



143 



cularly in tlie wooded districts of our midland counties, where 

 it inhabits forests, woods, parks, and gardens. This bird 

 climbs with great ease in all directions about the trunks and 

 limbs of trees, but appears unwilling to be seen, creeping 

 behind a branch on the approach of any observer, and re- 

 maining there out of sight. The Great Spotted Wood- 

 pecker, or Great Black and White Woodpecker, as it is also 

 sometimes called, like its generic companion the Green 

 Woodpecker, has several names. Willughby and Ray, and 

 others from their example, have called it the Witwall ; in 

 some counties it is called the French-pie, and in others the 

 Woodpie. 



Confining itself chiefly to woods, and rarely seen on the 

 ground, Mr. Gould says they are sometimes " observed to 

 alight upon rails, old posts, and decayed pollards, where, 

 among the moss and vegetable matter, they find a plentiful 

 harvest of spiders, ants, and other insects ; nor are they free 

 from the charge of plundering the fruit trees of the garden, 

 and in fact commit great havoc among cherries, plums, and 

 wall-fruit in general." Their food is insects of all sorts, and 

 probably in all their various stages ; and M. Temminck says 

 they will also eat seeds and nuts. 



Their flight is short, and performed in a series of undula- 

 tions. A particular sound made both by the adult birds and 

 also by the young birds of the year, Avhen seeking their own 

 living in autumn, has reference to one of their modes of ob- 

 taining food, and is thus explained by the editor of the last 

 edition of Pennant^s British Zoology. " By putting the 

 point of its bill into a crack of the limb of a large tree, and 

 making a quick tremulous motion with its head, it occasions 

 a sound as if the tree was splitting, which alarms the insects 

 and induces them to quit their recesses ; this it repeats every 

 minute or two for half an hour, and will then fly off to ano- 

 ther tree, generally fixing itself near the top for the same 



