THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 425 



Woodpecker Picus. How sorry a place this treeless island 

 must be for birds whose true home is in the pathless forests 

 needs not further to be discussed here ; and it is therefore 

 hardly necessary to add that this genus, which is so numerously 

 distributed in all parts of the world, in Heligoland is represented 

 by only one species i.e. Picus major which can be regarded to 

 some extent as a regular visitor to the island, a very small number 

 of examples being seen almost every year; besides this species, 

 P. leuconotus and P. viridis have each been observed once. 

 Seebohin estimates the number of species of the Woodpecker 

 genera at more than three hundred. 



227. Great Spotted Woodpecker [GROSSER BUNTSPECHT]. 

 PICUS MAJOR, Linn. 



Heligolandish : Holtbekker = Woodpecker. 



Picus major. Nauinann, v. 298. 



Great Spotted Woodpecker. Dresser, v. 19. 



Pic epeiche. Teinminck, Manuel, i. 395, iii. 281. 



As already mentioned, this bird occurs here in only very isolated 

 instances ; two or three young birds are occasionally seen during the 

 autumn migration but by no means every year whilst an old 

 example is a rare exception. They may be seen hammering about 

 on the dry wood of the throstle-bushes, and now and again one will 

 try to hack the beetles or larvae of Cryptorhynchus lapathi out 

 of the willow-stems in my garden, which are from four to five inches 

 thick ; indeed, these birds would earn my best thanks if they were 

 able to free my poor willow-bushes from this pest, for by the time 

 that the stems, especiaUy in the case of Salix caprea, have attained 

 to a thickness of from two to three inches, they are already so much 

 bored through by this vermin, that they either die off or are snapped 

 by the least gust of wind. This Woodpecker is a very common 

 breeding bird from the Canaries and Portugal to Japan and Kamt- 

 schatka. In the north it has been met with even beyond the 

 Arctic Circle. 



228. White-backed Woodpecker [WEISSSPECHT]. 

 PICUS LEUCONOTUS, Bechstein. 1 



Picus leuconotus. Naumann, v. 313. 



White-backed Woodpecker. Dresser, v. 39. 

 Pic leuconote. Temminck, Manuel, i. 396, iii. 282. 



This handsome Woodpecker, characterised by the abundance 

 of pure white on its back, has, so far as can be ascertained, only 



1 Dendrocopus leuconotus (Bechst. ). 



