GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER 173 
GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 
(JDendrocopus major.) 
Pied Woodpecker, Great Black and White 
Woodpecker. — This is certainly not such a common 
bird as the Green Woodpecker, though it is likely 
to escape notice owing to its smaller size and shy 
ways. Still, it is to be seen and heard in most 
wooded parts of the country. It makes itself most 
noticeable by the remarkably loud drumming sound 
which it produces with its bill on some dead branch 
of a tree at the breeding season in April. The 
strokes are so rapid that they make almost a single 
sound, like the roll of a kettle-drum, and in all 
probability they are produced by the same reflex, 
or rebounding, kind of stroke. The bird is 
probably not piercing the wood for the sake of 
food when it makes this noise, nor yet scaring 
insects out of their crevices by means of the vibra- 
tion, but using it as a form of display to attract 
the hen bird. It is thus to a great extent its 
equivalent for song. The cry of the bird is a 
frequent repetition of a single note, something like 
the Green Woodpecker's or the Wryneck's in 
utterance, but not nearly so loud. It has also a 
sharp call-note. It is a little larger than a Starling 
in size, and is oddly and conspicuously pied and 
