GREEN WOODPECKER. 91 
lined with roots; the cavity containing the eggs often seeming to 
be not very considerable. Now and then a nest is met with 
carefully and strongly compacted, and sufficiently cup-shaped. 
The Jay lays five or six eggs of a faint shade of dusky green for 
eround-colour, closely and thickly freckled all over with light 
brown.—fig 9, plate V. 
124. NUT-CRACKER—(Nucifraga caryocatactes). 
A bird which has probably been met with less than half-a-score 
times in all in this country. * 
GROUP III.—SCANSORKES. 
FAMILY I.—PICIDA. 
125. GREAT BLACK WOODPECKER—(Picus martius). 
Too rare a visitant to demand special notice in our pages. 
126. GREEN WOODPECKER—(Picus viridis). 
Wood-spite, Rain-fowl, Rain-bird, Hew-hole, Yaffle, Whet-ile, 
Woodwall, Witwall, Popinjay, Awl-bird, Haqual, Pick-a-tree, 
Yappingale, &c.—I observe Mr. Morris spells the name I have 
written Eaqual in the form Ecle. I have no idea of the origin 
or etymology of either form, but I have given these names gene- 
rally in the thought that they may be helpful to some, and 
interesting to other young egg-collectors. The Green Wood- 
pecker is the most common, and much the best known of all our 
English Woodpeckers. Besides being a very handsome bird, its 
organization (as is indeed the case with all the tribe) is so beau- 
tifully adapted to its mode of life, as to merit a brief notice at 
our hands. Its strong prehensile feet and claws, two toes being 
directed forward and two backwards, fit it not only for moving 
in all directions, and with wonderful readiness and ease in any 
direction whatever, about the trunk or limbs of a tree, but also 
for grasping the surface with great tenacity when necessity arises 
