WOODPECKERS. 361 
which the beak of the Woodpecker could not penetrate. This structure is 
shown when a Woodpecker’s head is carefully dissected. The tongue-bones or 
“hyoid” bones are greatly lengthened, and pass over the top of the head, being 
fastened in the skull just above the right nostril. These long tendinous-looking 
bones are accompanied by a narrow strip of muscle by which they are moveu. 
The tongue is furnished at the tip with a long horny appendage covered 
with barbs and sharply pointed at the extremity, so that the bird is enabled 
to project this instrument to a considerable distance from the bill, transfix an 
insect, and draw it into the mouth. Those insects that are too small to be 
thus treated are captured by means of a glutinous liquid poured upon the 
tongue from certain glands within the mouth, and which cause the little 
insects to adhere to the weapon suddenly projected among them. Some 
authors deny the transfixion. 
THE GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER is one of the five British species, and 
is also known by the names of Frenchpie and Woodpie. 
It is found in many parts of England, and, like the other Woodpeckers, 
must be sought in the forests-and woods rather than in orchards and gardens. 
Like other shy birds, however, it soon finds out where it may take up its 
abode unmolested, and will occasionally make its nest in some cultivated 
ground, where it has the instinctive assurance of safety, rather than entrust 
itself to the uncertain security of the forest. 
Although the Woodpeckers were formerly much persecuted, under the 
idea that they killed the trees by pecking holes in them, they are most useful 
birds, cutting away the decaying wood, as a surgeon removes a gangrened 
spot, and eating the hosts of insects which encamp in dead or dying wood, 
and would soon bring the whole tree to the ground. They do not confine 
themselves to trees, but seek their food wherever they can find it, searching 
old posts and rails, and especially delighting in those trees that are much 
infested with the green-fly, or aphis, as the wood-ants swarm in such trees 
for the purpose of obtaining the “ khoney-dew,” as it distils from the aphides, 
and then the Woodpeckers eat the ants. Those destructive creatures generally 
called wood-lice, and known to boys as “monkey-peas,” are a favourite article 
of diet with the Woodpeckers, to whom our best thanks are therefore due. 
But the Woodpeckers, although living mostly on insects, do not confine 
themselves wholly to that diet, but are very fond of fruits, always choosing 
the ripest. 
As is the case with all its congeners, the Great Spotted Woodpecker lays 
its eggs in the hollow of a tree. 
The locality chosen for this purpose is carefully selected, and is a tunnel 
excavated, or at all events altered, by the bird for the special purpose of nidi- 
fication. Before commencing the operation, the Woodpeckers always find 
out whether the tree is sound or rotten, and they can ascertain the latter fact 
even through several layers of sound wood. When they have fixed upon a site 
for their domicile, they set determinately to work, and speedily cut out a cir- 
cular tunnel just large enough to admit their bodies, but no larger. Sometimes 
this tunnel is tolerably straight, but it generally turns off in another direction. 
At the bottom of the hole the female bird collects the little chips of decay. d 
wood that have been cut off during the boring process, and deposits her eggs 
upon them without any attempt at nest-making. Some excellent examples 
of these nests are in the British Museum. The eggs are generally five in 
number, but six have been taken from the nest of this species. 
Generally the nests of birds are kept scrupulously clean, but that of the 
Woodpecker is a sad exception to the rule, the amount of filth and potency 
of stench being quite beyond human endurance. The colour of the eggs is 
white, and their surface glossy, and they are remarkable, when fresh, for 
