GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 149 



particularly in the wooded districts of our midland counties, 

 where it inhabits forests, woods, parks, and gardens. This 

 bird climbs with great ease in all directions about the 

 trunks and limbs of trees, but appears unwilling to be seen, 

 creeping behind a branch on the approach of any observer, 

 and remaining there out of sight. The Great Spotted 

 Woodpecker, or Great Black and White Woodpecker, as 

 it is also sometimes called, like its generic companion the 

 Green Woodpecker, has several names. Willughby and 

 Ray, and others from their example, have called it the 

 Witwall ; in some counties it is called the French-pie, and 

 in others the Woodpie. 



Confining itself chiefly to woods, and rarely seen on the 

 ground, Mr. Gould says they are sometimes " observed to 

 alight upon rails, old posts, and decayed pollards, where, 

 among the moss and vegetable matter, they find a plentiful 

 harvest of spiders, ants, and other insects ; nor are they free 

 from the charge of plundering the fruit trees of the garden, 

 and in fact commit great havoc among cherries, plums, and 

 wall-fruit in general." Their food is insects of all sorts, 

 and probably in all their various stages ; and M. Temminck 

 says they will also eat seeds and nuts. 



Their flight is short, and performed in a series of undula- 

 tions. A particular sound made by both the adult birds 

 and also by the young birds of the year, when seeking their 

 own living in autumn, has reference to one of their modes 

 of obtaining food, and is thus explained by the editor of the 

 last edition of Pennant's British Zoology. "By putting 

 the point of its bill into a crack of the limb of a large tree, 

 and making a quick tremulous motion with its head, it oc- 

 casions a sound as if the tree was splitting, which alarms 

 the insects and induces them to quit their recesses ; this it 

 repeats every minute or two for half an hour, and will then 



