148 GREAT BLACK WOODPECKER. 



often during the night it sleeps in the same painful 

 posture as in the fatigues of the day. It never 

 shares the sports of the other inhabitants of the 

 air, it joins not their vocal concerts, and its wild 

 cries and saddening tones, while they disturb the 

 silence of the forest, express constraint and effort : 

 its movements are quick, its gestures full of in- 

 quietude, its looks coarse and vulgar ; it shuns all 

 society, even that of its own kind ; and when it is 

 prompted to seek a companion, its appetite is not 

 softened by delicacy of feeling." 



GREAT BLACK WOODPECKER, 

 (Picus martius.) 



P. niger, pileo coccineo. 



Black Woodpecker, with a scarlet crown. 



Picus martius. Lin. Syst. Nat. 1. 173. 1. Faun. Suec. 08.- 



Lath. Ind. Orn. 1. 224. 1. 

 Picus niger. Briss. 4. 21 . 6. 

 Le Pic nbir. Buff. Hist. Nat. Ois. 7. 41. l.Bujf. PL Enl. 



Great Black Woodpecker, Pen, Arc, Zool. 2. 2J6. A. Letvin. 

 Br. Birds. 2. 46. -Lath. Gen. Syn. 2. 552. 1. Lath. Sup. 

 104. Don. Brit. Birds. 1. 13. Montague. Brit. Birds. 2. 

 Montague's Supplement* 



THE Great Black Woodpecker is in length se- 

 venteen inches : beak near two inches and a half 

 in length; of a dark ash-colour, whitish at the 

 sides : the whole bird black, except the crown of 

 the head, which is scarlet: irides pale yellow: 



