86 



10 



" 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 Whitwall 

 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 

 synonyms the Greek word chlorion, 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 Wittwall or Woodwall. — Mart.' Galbula is a diminutive 

 from galbus, signifying yellow. Killian interprets the Belgic word ' weed wael ' as galgulus 

 (avis eadem qum galbula, Plin.), avis lurida, oriolus. He also refers to the German word ' wette 

 Wal,' or '■ weet Wal,' which is applied to the Golden Amsell, or Yellow Thrush, two other names 

 for the Golden Oriole. Although these references would seem to identify the Golden Oriole as 

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

 Oriole in England, afford alone presumptive evidence that the 'Woodwele singing from the 

 spray,' the bird which woke Robin Hood, could not have been the Oriole. A ballad-writer, 

 wishing of course to be generally understood, would introduce some bird of general occurrence. 

 Harduin translates vireo into verdier, which, according to Buffon, is the Greenfinch ; and Ains- 

 worth gives Greenfinch as a translation of vireo. The Greenfinch certainly does not sing very 

 loud, but your freebooters are probably very light sleepers. In an English and German Dic- 

 tionary, composed chiefly from Johnson and Adelung, the word corresponding to Woodwall is 

 Griinspecht, which, as before noticed, is our Green Woodpecker. There seems to be no doubt 

 that the colour of the Woodwell was greenish yellow ; and this name, with its various modifi- 

 cations, 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 licence be 

 called a song, and, moreover, that they are most frequently uttered when the bird is on the 

 wing. 



"The derivations in the present instance, through the assistance of a learned friend at 

 Cambridge, who is kind enough to interest himself in the character and success of this History 

 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." 



With respect to the way in which this bird is supposed to foretell rain, Nilsson writes : — 



" In Norway, where it has the name of Gertrudsfogel, I am assured by an excellent meteo- 

 rologist that it prophesies the state of the weather at about three days ahead. If its call is low 

 and monotonous, the weather will be fine ; but if it calls loudly, there will be rain and storm ; 

 and if it comes near habitations and calls, then the weather will be still worse." 



Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., sends us the accompanying account of a curious vulgar superstition 

 respecting the present bird : — " The following is from Aubrey's ' Natural Remarques on the county 

 of Wilts, 1685.' He was a correspondent of Bay's, who in a letter dated 'Black Notley, 8 br 

 27, — 91,' alludes to this story as a fable. 



" ' Sir Bennet Hoskins, Baronet, told me that his keeper at his parke at Morehampton, in 

 Herefordshire, did for experiment sake drive an iron naile thwert the hole of the Woodpecker's 



