MARCH 65 



even at the peril of the reader's patience, for I own to 

 a special weakness for woodpeckers. 



The affinity of birds and reptiles in the scheme of 

 animated Nature has been recognised long ago. The 

 green woodpecker recalls the reptile kingdom in 

 another respect besides its creeping habit, its extensile, 

 viscid tongue, and certain anatomical peculiarities in 

 the bones of the head. Its young are hatched as naked 

 as young lizards, instead of being protected with down, 

 like nearly all other nestlings. Perhaps, however, 

 seeing that the nest is always in the heart of a tree, 

 down has been dispensed with as a superfluity, un- 

 necessary to young things so well protected against 

 cold draughts. 



We have two other native species of woodpecker 

 the Great and the Lesser Spotted not less remarkable 

 than the yaffle for their gay coats; but they are less 

 likely to attract attention, for, unlike their green cousin, 

 they do not frequent ant : hills, they are not so talkative, 

 and they generally move among the higher branches 

 of the forest. Black, barred with white, with sparks 

 and streaks of scarlet, is the livery of the males of both 

 Picus (Dendrocopus) major and minor. The female, 

 also, is started in life with a smart cap of red feathers ; 

 but, strange to say, when the young hens attain the 

 age of six months, all red disappears from their 

 plumage, not by a moult, as Yarrell supposed, but by 

 a change in the feathers from red to black. A similar 

 change takes place in the young males ; the feathers 

 of the fore part of the head remain scarlet till the first 

 E 



