GREEN WOODPECKER. 145 



yet the remark of Dr. Turner, and our own knowledge of 

 the rarity of the Golden Oriole in England, affords strong 

 presumptive evidence that the " Wood Wele singing from 

 the spray," the bird which woke Robin Hood, could not 

 have been the Golden Oriole. A ballad writer, wishing of 

 course to be generally understood, would introduce some 

 bird of familiar occurrence. Harduin translates vireo into 

 verdier, which, according to Buffon, is the Greenfinch ; and 

 A ins worth gives Greenfinch as a translation of vireo. The 

 Greenfinch certainly does not sing very loud, but your free- 

 booters are probably very light sleepers. In an English 

 and German Dictionary, composed chiefly from Johnson 

 and Adelung, the word corresponding to Wood wall is 

 Grunspecht, which, as before noticed, is our Green Wood- 

 pecker. There seems to be no doubt that the colour of the 

 Woodwele was greenish yellow, and this name, with its 

 various modifications, may therefore apply to the Green 

 Woodpecker, the Golden Oriole, or the Greenfinch. The 

 objections to the Green Woodpecker are, that his notes 

 can scarcely in poetical license be called a song; and, 

 moreover, that they are most frequently uttered when the 

 bird is on the wing. 



The derivation in the present instance, through the assist- 

 ance of a learned friend at Cambridge, who is kind enough 

 to interest himself in the character and success of this His- 

 tory of our British Birds, might have been carried much 

 farther, but it may perhaps be considered that enough has 

 already been said here upon this subject. 



Though sufficiently common and well known in the 

 wooded districts of England and Scotland, as before 

 observed, I can find no record of the occurrence of the 

 Green Woodpecker in Ireland. It is not a common bird 

 in Holland, though found generally on the European Conti- 



VOL. II. L 



