92 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 
for applyingits strong bill to penetrating or disloding either 
bark or portions of the wood itself. When thus occupied, the 
tail comes mto use, and the bones at the lower extremity of the 
skeleton are so formed as to enable the stiff, pomted tail-feathers 
to be applied to the tree in such a way as to strengthen the pur- 
chase already obtained by the firm foot-hold. Add to all this the 
length of the tongue, its great extensibility, specially provided 
for by a peculiar arrangement of muscles, together with the 
structure of the tongue itself—remarkable for its sharp, horny 
tip and barb-like bristles on either side near the pomt—and we 
have one of Nature’s most beautiful accommodations of means to 
the intended end which can well be offered to our admiring notice. 
The undulating flight and laugh-like cry of the Green Wood- 
pecker used to be more common than they seem to be now, and 
the great multiplicity of provincial names seems to show that 
once it must have been an exceedingly common bird. I have 
rarely seen or heard it here: and no wonder. For where once 
there were miles of forest, now we have scarcely 100 acres of 
wood in the whole district. ‘This Woodpecker’s cry is loudly 
and frequently uttered before impending rain; whence one of its 
common or by-names. It breeds in holes in trees, which it often 
excavates in part or enlarges to suit its wants. It makes no 
nest, but deposits its eggs, four to seven in number, and per- 
fectly white, ona bed of the soft decayed wood of the tree. The 
eges average rather over 13-inch in length, by about. £-inch broad. 
No illustration being possible in our space of purely white eggs 
I think it better to append their measurements, 
127. GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER—(Picus maior). 
Pied Woodpecker, French-pie, Wood-pie, Whitwall, Great 
Black and White Woodpecker, Wood-nacker—A not very 
