Fallacies Relating to the Green Woodj)echer. 53 



by a call of especial loudness, are not to be relied on ; 

 and -when heard preceding a rainfall it seems simply 

 coincidence. 



I think, then, the above beliefs have been shown to be 

 more or less fallacies, notwithstanding their having been 

 religiously copied by Mr. Morris in his "History of 

 British Birds," and by a host of other writers — in short, 

 they have run the rounds of most ornithological works, 

 including encyclopsedias, and are still running them. 



Yet another of these fancies, though less worthy of 

 note, may be alluded to : that of the Woodpecker " tap- 

 ping at the hollow beech tree," a conceit, no doubt, 

 originating in the brain of Henry Kirke White, and 

 perpetuated by his gentle lay. It would be a rare sight 

 to see a Woodpecker on a beech tree, whether hollow or 

 sound, for the simple reason that the bark of these trees 

 is seldom otherwise than sound, affording no lodgment 

 to insects, besides being too smooth even for the claws of 

 the Scansores. The apple tree, knotty, corrugated, and 

 swarming with insect larvae, is the favourite habitat of 

 the Green Woodpecker; and, no doubt, the abundance of 

 this species in the "cider shires," — greater I believe than 

 elsewhere, — is owing to the orchards. 



Elsewhere I said that the " tapping " oft heard in 

 woods is more the work of the Nuthatch than of any of 

 the species of Picusj and I now find, on referring to 

 "White's Natural History of Selborne," that he pointed 

 out this fact more than a century ago. Indeed, the Green 

 Woodpecker, which, as the largest of the three common 

 species, and, armed with the most powerful beak, might be 

 expected to make the most noise in this way, scarce makes 

 such noise at all. Neither does the Greater Spotted; 

 while the sound proceeding from the Lesser Spotted is 



