Picario' 105 



though nuts, acorns and other fruits are also eaten. 

 When a Woodpecker is searching the bark of a tree 

 it ascend'S — or even descends — the trunk spirally as a 

 Creeper does, moving in jerky fashion and supporting 

 itself by the stiff-pointed feathers of its outspread tail. 

 The flight is characteristically undulating. The notes 

 are usually sharp and disconnected, but when rapidly 

 uttered produce a sound not unlike the " laugh " of 

 the Green Woodpecker. In spring the bird makes a 

 loud hammering noise by striking the bark, generally 

 of some rotten bough, with its beak. Rotten trees 

 are also chosen, as a rule, for the nesting-hole, which 

 is bored inwards for some few inches in the form of 

 a circle, and is then gradually enlarged downwards until 

 it ends in a spacious chamber, where from five to seven 

 glossy white eggs are deposited on a few chips. Abortive 

 borings are common. 



The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker {D. minor) is much 

 more local than the last-named in Britain and seldom 

 more abundant ; it rarely strays to Scotland or Ireland, 

 but has a similar foreign range, with the addition of 

 north Africa. In this bird the crown, and not the 

 nape, is crimson, and the remaining parts are black 

 and white ; but it should be noticed that in both 

 species the young have some red on the crown. 

 Allowing for its smaller size the Lesser Spotted Wood- 

 pecker resembles the Greater Spotted in its habits ; the 

 eggs are not so large, but the habit of drumming is 

 more noticeable. 



The Green Woodpecker or Yaffle (Picus viridis), our 

 largest and most plentiful species, is green with a 

 crimson crown and nape, and a black face which has a 

 crimson stripe in the male. It rarely breeds in the 



