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WOODPECKER. 
habit Hurope; and four of these are occasionally 
met with in Britain. 
The great black woodpecker, Picus martvus, is 
the largest of the British species,—almost as large 
as a crow, and measures 16 inches in length; and 
it is all over of a uniform black colour, with a 
beautiful rich blood red in the calotte of the male, 
and a mere spot on the occiput of the female. It 
prefers pine forests to all other haunts. 
The green woodpecker, Picus viridis, is the most 
common and the best known of the British spe- 
cies; and is popularly known, in different dis- 
tricts, by a variety of more or less descriptive 
names, such as rain-bird, woodwale, hew-hole, 
yaffil, whittle, and witmale. It occurs in all or 
almost all the woodland districts of both Eng- 
land and Scotland; and is generally seen either 
climbing a tree in search of its insect-food, or 
passing by a short, undulating, and somewhat 
laboured flight from one tree to another ; and it 
usually prefers the beech and the elm to all other 
trees. It is one of the most beautiful largish 
birds in Europe. Its total length is about 13 
inches; its back, its wings, and other parts of 
the upper surface of its body, have a dark green 
colour tinged with yellow; the under parts of its 
body are whitish; its calotte is bright scarlet; 
and its ramp and upper tail coverts are sulphur 
yellow. Its young are marked with black spots 
beneath, and with white spots on the mantle. 
The great spotted woodpecker, Picus major, is 
the next best known British species, and is some- 
what common in gardens, parks, groves, and plan- 
tations, in the woodiest districts of the midland 
counties of England; and it is popularly called 
in some places the whitwall, and in others the 
wood-pie or the French-pie. It prefers evergreen 
trees, and often approaches human dwellings, but 
scarcely ever lights on the ground; and it feeds 
on larva, on insects, on seeds, and on ants. Its 
total length is 9$ inches; its occiput is bright 
scarlet; the top of its head is dark bluish black ; 
its irides are red; its forehead, its ear-coverts, 
and a circle round each eye are dull dirty white ; 
its throat, its neck, its breast, and its belly are 
dirty white ; its back, the nape of its neck, its 
rump, and its upper tail-coverts are black ; and 
its vent and its under tail-coverts are red. 
The little spotted woodpecker, or small barred 
woodpecker, Picus minor, is not uncommon in 
the vicinity of London, and in the midland Eng- 
lish counties, but has such retiring habits and is 
so much smaller than the other species that it 
readily escapes observation, and is considered 
comparatively rare. It is said by some natura- 
lists to search on foot for ants,—and it has thence 
been called the grasspecker ; but its really having 
such a habit is at least doubtful. Its total length 
is 52 inches; the middle of its back is white, 
barred transversely with black ; its wing-coverts 
andits tail are black; its chin, its throat, and all 
the under surface of its body are dull white ; and 
the crown of the head of the male is bright scarlet. 
WOODRUFF. 761 
WOODRUFF,—botanically Asperula. A genus 
of ornamental herbaceous plants of the madder 
family. Two species grow wild in Britain, and 
nearly 30 have been introduced from other coun- 
tries, principally the south and south-east of 
Kurope. One of the introduced species is a 
hardy annual, one is a frame evergreen, one is a 
hardy perennial creeper, and all the others are 
hardy, annual-stemmed, erect perennials. They 
vary in height from one or two inches to upwards 
of two feet, but most have a height of between 6 
and 15 inches. Their flowers are either white, 
flesh-coloured, pink, red, purple, lilac, or yellow ; 
and, in most instances, bloom in June and July. 
Most of the species are very handsome, and 
possess the agreeable habit of flourishing under 
the shade of trees, and thrive in any common or 
even somewhat moist soil. 
The small woodruff or squinancy-wort, Aspe- 
rula cynanchica, is a native of the chalk hills of 
England. The root is perennial; the stems are 
numerous, ascending, profusely clothed with 
whorled foliage, and from 4 to 10 inches high; 
the leaves are linear, smooth, and four in a 
whorl,—and the upper ones are very unequal; 
and the flowers grow in terminal panicled tufts, 
and have a whitish or flesh colour, and are some- 
times very fragrant, and bloom in July. This 
plant was formerly regarded as, in both external 
and internal use, a remedy for quinsey or squin- 
ancy,—and it thence derived both its popular and 
its botanical names; but it was utterly undesery- 
ing of any such reputation. An infusion of it, 
however, is astringent, and might serve as a 
gargle. 
The common or sweet woodruff, Asperula odo- 
rata, is a native of the dry woods of many parts 
of Britain. The root is perennial and creeping ; 
the stems are simple, clothed with whorled fo- 
liage, and from 4 to 10 inches high; the leaves 
are lanceolate, spreading, bright green, about an 
inch long, and eight in a whorl; the floral pani- 
cles stand on longish footstalks, and generally 
grow three together; the flowers have a short 
tube and a pure white colour, and bloom in May 
and June, and are fragrant chiefly at night; and 
the fruit are small capsules so armed with ascend- 
ing bristles as to feel quite rough. This plant, 
when cut and laid out to dry, emits a strong and 
delightful fragrance similar to that of Anthoxan- 
thum odoratum, bitter almonds, and heliotrope ; 
and it continues to give out some of this fra- 
grance during a considerable time after it is quite 
dry; and it has, in consequence, been much used 
for scenting clothes, flavouring wine, and similar 
purposes. The herbage, in a green state, is eaten 
by goats, sheep, and cattle, and is believed to 
have the property of increasing the secretion of 
milk. The edges of its leaves stick to the hands 
and garments by means of the minute hooked 
bristles which constitute their roughness; and 
they possess this property in common with many 
other plants of the rubiaceous order. 
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