324 British Woodpeckers. 



its work from all points ; at the same time uttering a peculiar 

 low chuckle, as if satisfied with its performance. Of the dif- 

 ferent kinds of wood given to it, the favourite piece was either 

 beech or fir, and if these two were placed in the cage together, 

 it invariably commenced upon the beech. I never found 

 amongst the debris a chip larger than a grain of wheat, but„ 

 the greater portion was like fine sawdust. The holes bored 

 were always round. Now it is well known that these birds 

 always choose for their breeding-place trees which are decayed 

 or hollow in the centre. Inside the bark, where the wood is 

 partly decayed, the woodpecker scoops out a hollow sufficiently 

 large to contain its eggs, generally selecting for this purpose 

 a position about a foot below the entrance, and the debris 

 made during the construction of the nest falls into the hollow 

 of the tree. Last year the upper part of an old oak was 

 blown down in Castle Howard park. In the remaining portion 

 of the trunk was a woodpecker's nest, found by me before the 

 accident occurred to the tree, but which I could not reach 

 from the outside. On climbing up the shattered trunk, I 

 found the centre hollow, and round the circumference were five 

 woodpeckers' nests, one of which contained four eggs, and at 

 the bottom of the tree was a large accumulation of particles 

 of decaj^ed wood, the result of the labours of these birds, 

 while making their nests, or searching for insects. 



The Great Spotted Woodpecker is inferior in size to the 

 Green Woodpecker ; the general colour of its plumage is black 

 and white, the crown and the feathers near the undertail 

 coverts are bright crimson. 



Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Picus minor, Linn.). This is 

 the rarest, as well as the smallest of the British woodpeckers ; 

 its total length not exceeding five and a half inches. In the 

 colour of its plumage this bird somewhat resembles the last- 

 mentioned species, but may be distinguished from it by its 

 smaller size, and by the greater, amount of white on the wings. 

 It frequents woods, orchards, and isolated trees in search of 

 food, which, like that of its congeners, consists of insects. It 

 is exceedingly shy, and when surprised, seldom seeks safety in 

 flight, but trusts to its activity in keeping a branch between 

 itself and the object of its alarm. Its note is loud for so 

 small a bird, and is like the noise made by the turning of a 

 crank, whence its local name of crank-bird. The eggs are 

 white, like those of the two preceding species, and are found 

 in the same situations. 



The three following birds are natives of North America, 

 and are separately described in Wilsoji's American Ornithology , 

 Jameson's edition : — 



Downy Woodpecker (Picas pubescens, Linn.). 



