144 PICIDjE. 



" The Woodwele sang and would not cease, 



Sitting upon the spray e, 

 So loud he wakened Robin Hood 

 In the green wood where he lay." 



Ritson's edition of Robin Hood, vol. i. p. 115. 



" In many places Nightingales, 

 And Alpes* and Finches and Woodwales." 



Chartcer, Rom. of the Rose. 



" There the Jay and the Throstell, 

 The Mavis menyd in her song, 

 The Woodwale farde or beryd as a bell 

 That wode about me rung." 



True Thomas. 



In the glossary to the work first quoted, the Woodwele 

 is thus described : " The Golden Ouzle, a bird of the 

 Thrush kind. P." The initial P. is probably intended to 

 refer to the works of Pliny. In the English portion of 

 Ainsworth's Dictionary, the corresponding term for Wit- 

 wall is vireo ; and Dr. William Turner, an English 

 physician, and an accurate observer of birds, who wrote in 

 the time of Henry the Eighth, makes vireo to be the Golden 

 Oriole, including in his synonymes the Greek word CJilo- 

 rion, also in reference to colour, and the German names 

 Wittwol and Weidwail ; but remarking that he had never 

 seen this bird in England, though he had seen it very often 

 in Germany. Galbula, another term applied to the Golden 

 Oriole, is in Ainsworth's Dictionary, " a bird which we 

 call a Whittall, or Wood wall, Mart" Galbula is a dimi- 

 nutive from gallus, signifying yellow. Kilian interprets 

 the Belgic word " weed wael " as galgulus (avis eadem que 

 qalbula, Plin.) avis lurida, oriolus. He also refers to the 

 German word " wette wal," or " weet wal," which is 

 applied to the Gold Amsell, or Yellow Thrush, two other 

 names for the Golden Oriole. Although these references 

 would seem to identify the Golden Oriole as the Woodwele, 



* An old name for the Bullfinch. 



