322 THE WOODPECKERS 



eggs, 1*03 x -76 in. [26'28 x 19'47 mm.]. When undisturbed by starlings, the eggs 

 are generally laid from about the 12th to the 20th of May, but the first nest is often 

 forcibly taken over, and the woodpeckers compelled to begin housekeeping anew. 

 Incubation is performed by both sexes, and lasts about a fortnight (Saunders), 

 while a single brood only is reared during the season. [F. c. R. jr.] 



5. Food. The adults feed mainly on insects, but also, in the autumn, on 

 fruit and ants, acorns, beech-mast, and seeds of conifers. The young are fed by 

 both parents on insects brought in the beak. [w. p. p.] 



6. Song Period. Messrs. Alexander (Br. Birds, iv. 276) state that the call- 

 note is very seldom uttered: the song is represented by the drumming noise, 

 which is not heard in the autumn. The sharp chink or chik is, in my opinion, 

 only used as an alarm note. [F. c. R. j.] 



NORTHERN GREAT SPOTTED - WOODPECKER 



[Dendrocopus major major Linnaeus. French, pic epeiche ; German, grosser 

 Buntspecht ; Italian, picchio vario maggiore]. 



1. Description. Differs from the British Great Spotted-Woodpecker only 

 in its size, more powerful beak, longer wing, in which the first primary is con- 

 spicuously longer than the primary coverts, and paler less brownish under 

 parts, [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. This is the representative form of Great Spotted-Wood- 

 pecker in the forests of Scandinavia and Northern Russia, where it breeds up to 

 about 70 N. lat. in the former country, and about 64 N. in the latter, while 

 southward its breeding limits extend to East Prussia. In the rest of Continental 

 Europe, the Canaries, Corsica, and Sardinia, and the greater part of temperate Asia 

 it is replaced by allied sub-species. [F. c. R. J.] 



3. Migration. A winter visitor regularly in small numbers to the more 

 south-easterly portions of Great Britain, and at irregular intervals in comparatively 

 large numbers and over a wider area. A few occur annually, chiefly from September 

 till November, along the east coast of Great Britain from the line of the Grampians 

 southwards to Norfolk. But at intervals of a few years larger immigrations occur, 

 and these are usually very well marked in the northern and western Scottish Isles. 

 The Faeroes have also been visited. Winters in which such influxes have occurred 

 are 1861, 1868-9, 1886-7, 1889, 1901-2, while records from the Scottish Isles were 

 rather numerous in 1909 (cf. Harvie-Brown, Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1908, p. 214 ; 



