GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 155 



looks as if it were migratory with us, at least from 

 one part of the country to another, and that we 

 saw it only in transitu. In March 1827, two 

 male and female, were shot together in the park 

 at Bottisham, but I never heard of the nest being 

 taken about here ; nor am I aware that they breed 

 so early in the spring as to induce the belief that 

 these had paired for that purpose. 



The noise made by these birds is very peculiar, 

 and one that I had often heard in the spring for 

 several years in succession, before ascertaining the 

 source whence it proceeded. It very much resem- 

 bles the creaking of an old tree in the wind, though 

 I never could observe the way in which it was 

 produced.* 



I have noticed that this species of woodpecker 

 always swarms to a prodigious degree with a minute 

 kind of Icarus (Sarcoptes ? Latr.) mostly infesting 

 the plumage about the head and neck. It is closely 

 allied to the Ac. avicularum of De Geerf, but is 

 specifically distinct. 



COMMON CREEPER.J 



May 1, 1826. TO-DAY we found a creeper's nest 

 beneath the loose and decayed bark of one of the limes 

 in the avenue in Bottisham Park, a situation in which 



* Some authors assert that it is produced by the bird putting 

 the point of its bill into a crack of the limb of a large tree, and in 

 that position making a quick tremulous motion with its head. 



f Mem. torn. vii. p. 107, pi. vi. fig. 9. 



$ Certliiafamiliaris, Linn. 



