GREEN WOODPECKER 



ECLE LARGE GREEN WOODPECKER WOODSPITE HIGH 

 HOE HEW-HOLE PICK-A-TREE POPINJAY RAIN-BIRD 

 RAIN-FOWLWHITTLE AWL-BIRD YAPPING AL YAFFLE 

 YAFFER NICK-A-PECKER. 



PLATE LIII. FIGURE II. 



Picus viridis, ...... LINNAEUS. 



Gecinus viridis^ ...... GRAY. 



THE Green Woodpecker commences its preparations for 

 building so early as April, and the old nest is fre- 

 quently resorted to and repaired. The nest, if decayed wood 

 dust may be called such, is placed at a height of fifteen or 

 twenty feet from the ground, in a hole in a tree ; the birds 

 rarely carry away the chips and fragments of wood to a 

 distance, and their presence often indicates the position of 

 the nest, heaps of one or even one or two bushels piled 

 up at the root of the tree being recorded by Booth. If 

 necessary it perforates a hollow or else suits one to itself, 

 with its trenchant bill, the strokes of the active worker 

 being incessantly repeated: the sound of the "Woodpecker 

 tapping the hollow beech tree" may be distinctly heard, it 

 is said, at a distance of half a mile. 



The eggs, four or five to six or eight in number, are 

 pure glossy white in colour. In the Zoologist Professor 

 Newton mentions his having met with five eggs of this bird 



