BRITISH BIRDS' NESTS. 501 



and heaths adjoining woods, copses, and plantations, 

 most numerously in the southern and eastern 

 counties, occasionally in the north, in Wales, and 

 rarely in Scotland and Ireland. 



Materials. Coarse grass on the outside, finer 

 grass, moss, and hair as an inner lining. The 

 nest is placed in a little hollow, either natural or 

 scratched out by the bird. 



Eggs. Four or five, pale greenish-white, light 

 brownish-yellow, or pale reddish-white in ground- 

 colour, thickly speckled and spotted with dull 

 reddish-brown, and underlying markings of dark 

 grey. The markings sometimes form a zone at 

 the larger end. Size about .84 by .65 in. Dis- 

 tinguishable from those of the Skylark by small 

 reddish-brown spots and lighter and less obscured 

 ground-colour. (See Plate II.) 



Time. March, April, May, and June. 



Remarks. Resident and migratory. Notes: 

 sings on the wing and perched on the boughs of 

 trees ; call, uttered constantly during flight, tweedle, 

 weedle, weedle. Local or other name : none. 

 A close sitter. 



WOODPECKER, GREATER SPOTTED. 



(Dcndrocopus major.) 

 Order PICARLE ; Family PICID.E (WOODPECKERS). 



Description of Parent Birds. Length nearly nine 

 and a half inches. Beak of medium length, straight, 

 sharp at the tip, and dusky. Irides red. Forehead 

 buffish ; round the eyes and ear-coverts dirty white. 

 Crown black ; back of head bright scarlet. A black 

 stripe commences at the gape and, widening, passes 

 backward under the eye and ear-coverts to the 



