GREAT BLACK WOODPECKER. 229 



splinters, and is often in sufficient abundance to betray the 

 cause. 



Many specimens of this woodpecker have been shot in 

 England at different times : sufficient to establish its claim to 

 be reckoned among British stragglers. It has been met 

 with in several counties, south as well as north : also in 

 Scotland. It does not appear that any attempt has been 

 made by this species to breed or locate itself in this country, 

 and judging from its northern habits it is probable that 

 further observation will tend to establish it as nothing more 

 than a winter straggler from more northern parts. 



The Great Black Woodpecker is the largest of the Wood- 

 peckers known in Europe. In length its measurement is 

 from nineteen to twenty inches, from the tip of the beak to 

 the extremity of the tail : its weight varies from twenty to 

 twenty-three ounces. The length of the tail is seven 

 inches, and the closed wings cover about half its length. 

 The tail-feathers decrease in length from the central to the 

 outer pair, the latter measuring no more than two inches and 

 a half. All the tail-feathers have the shafts strong, and of 

 the substance of whalebone, much pointed or tapering at the 

 tips, hollow on the under surface, and having the webs to- 

 wards the tips resembling bristles. The quill-feathers of the 

 wings are in their proportions as follows : the first is short, 

 narrow, and very pointed ; the second twice as long ; the 

 third is broader and less pointed, and an inch and a 

 quarter longer than the second ; the fourth still broader and 

 half an inch longer ; the fifth only one line longer, and the 

 longest in the wing. These quill-feathers are weaker than 

 those of any other of the woodpeckers. The secondaries are 

 particularly broad and long in proportion : the upper and 

 under wing-coverts are short, tending altogether to form a 

 very peculiar shape of the wing, and consequently occasioning 

 a different flight from others of its species. The beak is very 



