PICIDJE. 249 



the young of this bird taken from the tree before 

 they can fly and brought up by hand. 



The Green Woodpecker is a fine handsome bird, 

 nearly equalling in brightness of colouring many 

 foreign birds. The beak is a dark shining horn- 

 colour ; irides white ; the lower part of the forehead, 

 the space from the beak to the eye, and round the 

 eye, black ; a moustache descends from the base of 

 the beak a short way down the sides of the neck, 

 black in the female, crimson in the male, edged 

 with black ; top of the head and nape crimson ; back 

 and scapulars bright green, tinged with olive ; rump 

 and tail-coverts bright greenish yellow; both sets of 

 wing-coverts olive-green : primary quills dusky, 

 barred on the outer web with dull dirty white ; 

 secondaries and tertials olive-green, tertials rather 

 the darkest, and some of them barred on the inner 

 web with dull brown ; the tail-feathers are very 

 strong, stiff and pointed at the ends, dusky barred 

 with dull light brown; throat, hinder part of the 

 cheeks and the neck, dull dirty white, tinged with 

 green ; all the rest of the under parts the same, but 

 rather darker in colour than the throat. Young 

 birds that have recently quitted the nest have the 

 crimson colour on the top of the head mixed with 

 yellow and greyish black, the feathers passing, by a 

 change of colour, from greyish white to yellow, and 

 afterwards to crimson. On the moustache of the 

 young male the same changes may be observed : on 



