Gold-backed Woodpecker. 

 {Brachypternus auraniius. ) 



XII.— THE WOODPECKEE. 



"The golden woodpecher laughs loud at 



nothing."— Hurdis. 



It would appear that a propensity for irrespon- 

 -sible and irrelevant hilarity is widely spread in the 

 Woodpecker family ; for the species alluded to by 

 the worthy author of the " Village Curate " is the 

 English Green Woodpecker {Oecinus viridis) — a bird 

 which can hardly even by a stretch of the poetical 

 imagination be caUed golden, by the way. Our 

 own common Calcutta Woodpecker (Brachyptemus 



