GREEN WOODPECKER. 149 



wood ; the origin and the meaning of this name for the 

 Woodpecker is, therefore, sufficiently obvious : whytel, 

 whittle, whet-ile, woodhacker. 



The terms Woodwele, Woodwale, Woodwall, and Wit- 

 wall, which are only modifications of the same word, are 

 generally considered to refer to one of the species of our 

 English Woodpeckers, but to which, or, I may add, if to 

 either, there is some doubt. Willughby and Ray apply 

 the name of Witwall to the Greater Black and White, or 

 Greater Spotted Woodpecker; and in the New Forest, 

 Hampshire, at the present day, this same bird is called 

 Woodwall, Woodwale, Woodnacker, and Woodpie. The 

 word occurs occasionally in old ballads : 



" The Woodwele sang and would not cease, 



Sitting upon the spraye, 

 So loud he wakened Robin Hood 

 In the green wood where he lay." 



Ititeon's edition of Robin Hood, vol. L p. 115. 



" In many places Nightingales, 

 And Alpes* and Finches and Woodwales." 



Chaucer, Bom. of the Rose. 



" There the Jay and the Throstell, 

 The Mavis menyd in her song, 

 The Woodwale farde or beryd as a bell 

 That wode about me rung." 



True Thomas. 



In the glossary to the work first quoted, the Woodwele 

 is thus described : " The Golden Ouzle, a bird of the 

 Thrush kind. P." The initial P. is probably intended to 

 refer to the works of Pliny. In the English portion of 

 Ainsworth's Dictionary, the corresponding term for Wit- 

 wall is vireo ; and Dr. William Turner, an English phy- 

 sician, and an accurate observer of birds, who wrote in the 

 time of Henry the Eighth, makes vireo to be the Golden 



* An old name for the Bullfinch. 



