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" The various names by which our Green Woodpecker is known in different parts of this 

 country invite observation. Wood-spite, which I have also seen spelled Wood-speight, is not 

 intended for our English words wood and spite; the first syllable is derived from woad, in 

 reference to the green colour of the bird, and the second syllable is derived from the German 

 word ' specht,' a Woodpecker : Grunspecht is in Germany the name of our Green Woodpecker. 



" Eain-bird has been already noticed. Wallis, in his ' History of Northumberland,' observes 

 that it is called by the common people Kain-fowl, from its being more loud and noisy before rain. 

 The Eomans called them Pluvice aves for the same reason. 



" Hew-hole is sufficiently explained by the well-known habit of the bird. 



" Yaffle or Yaffil. The Green Woodpecker is so called in Surrey and Sussex. This name has 

 reference to the repeated notes of the bird, which have been compared to the sound of a laugh. 

 White, of Selborne, says ' the Woodpecker laughs ; ' and in the popular poem of ' The Peacock 

 at Home ' the following couplet occurs : — 



" ' The Skylark in ecstasy sang from a cloud 



And Chanticleer crow'd, and the Yaffil laugh'd loud/ 



" In some parts of Hertfordshire, and of the adjoining county of Essex, the Green Wood- 

 pecker is called a Whet-ile. The word Whittle is a term at present in use in some northern 

 counties. Brockett, in his ' Glossary of North-country Words,' considers it derived from the 

 Saxon ' whytel,' a knife. In Yorkshire and in North America a whittle is a clasp-knife, and to 

 whittle* is to cut or hack wood; the origin and the meaning of the Woodpecker's name are 

 therefore sufficiently obvious : Whytel, Whittle, Whetile, Woodhacker. 



" The terms Woodwele, Woodwale, Woodwall, and Witwall, which are only modifications of 

 the same word, are generally considered to refer to one of the species of our English Wood- 

 peckers, but to which, or, I may add, if to either, there is some doubt. 



" Willughby and Kay apply the name of Witwall to the Greater Black and White, or 

 Greater Spotted Woodpecker ; and in the New Forest, Hampshire, at the present day, this same 

 bird is called Woodwall, Woodwale, Woodnacker, and Woodpie. The word occurs occasionally 

 in old ballads: — 



" ' The Woodwele sang and would not cease. 

 Sitting upon the spray, 

 So loud he wakened Robin Hood 



In the greenwood where he lay.' — Ritson's Edition of Robin Hood, vol. i. p. 115. 



" ' In many places Nightingales, 



And Alpesf and Finches and Woodwales/ — Chaucer, Rom. of the Rose. 



" ' There the Jay and the Throstell, 

 The Mavis menyd in her song, 

 The Woodwale fard or beryd as a bell, 



That wode about me rung/ — True Thomas. 



* See Webster's ' Dictionary/ and both series of ' The Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick, the Clockmaker/ 

 f An old name for the Bullfinch. 



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