194 BIRDS. 



country, and its breeding in Scotland is extremely uncer- 

 tain. In this species the crown is black, the tail being 



conspicuously marked with white. It feeds 

 Great , . , . 



Spotted on insects, berries, and acorns ; and is wonder- 

 Wood- fully armed, like the rest of its tribe, for hunt- 

 pec er. .^ ^ e gj^g ou j. o theij. retreat in trees. 



They all have the low-keeled breast-bone, enabling them 

 to hug the trunk closely; the stiff, pointed tail-feathers 

 to support them, although the claws are already specially 

 modified to that end ; the powerful wedge-shaped bill for 

 exploring ; and, lastly, the wonderful extensile tongue, that 

 works, as it were, on a powerful spring from the back of 

 the skull, and that is further connected with a salivary 

 gland and armed at the tip with recurved hooks. Of a 

 truth the insects have but a poor chance against such 

 odds, and the woodpecker is not likely to go short of a 

 meal wherever there are trees. These remarkable features 

 are common to all three woodpeckers, so that it will be 

 unnecessary to allude to them again. This woodpecker 

 usually hews the hole for its nest in some half-rotten 

 trunk, but occasionally spares itself some of the labour 

 by adapting to its requirements a hole already in existence. 

 Unlike the marsh-tit, it rarely takes the trouble to remove 

 the telltale chips from the foot of the tree. Eggs^ 5 to 7, 

 i inch ; creamy white, without spots of any kind. 



The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is a much smaller 

 species than the last, which it otherwise greatly resembles 



in both appearance and habits. Though by 

 Lesser . . , , ^ & 



Spotted no means uncommon in the south of England, 



"Wood- i n the home counties more especially, and 

 scarcely rare in the Midlands, it is rare in 

 Scotland and a straggler to Ireland, there being at most 

 half-a-dozen authenticated records of its occurrence in the 

 latter country. It has the undulating flight of all the 

 woodpeckers, and, like them, is to be seen by the ex- 

 perienced stalker who, guided by the tapping on the bark 



