GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER.
Picus major, Lenn.

Le Pic épeiche.

Tus familiar species of the group of Spotted Woodpeckers enjoys a range of habitat more extensive,
perhaps, than any other of its European relatives, there being no wooded districts, especially in the central
portions of Europe, where it is not extremely common. In England it abounds in forests, woods, large parks,
and gardens. ‘The group to which it belongs, although occasionally descending to the ground in search of
food, are far more arboreal in their habits and manners than the Green W oodpeckers represented by the Prcus
viridis, caniceps, and several others from the Himalayan mountains. They exhibit great dexterity in traversing
the trunks of trees and the larger decayed limbs in quest of larvae and coleopterous insects which lurk beneath
the bark, and to obtain which they labour with great assiduity, disengaging large masses of bark, or so disturbing
it by repeated blows as to dislodge the objects of their search. Besides searching trees of the highest growth,
they are observed to alight upon rails, old posts, and decayed pollards, where, among the moss and vegetable
matter, they find a plentiful harvest of spiders, ants, and other insects ; nor are they free from the charge of
plundering the fruit-trees of the garden, and in fact commit great havoc among cherries, plums, and wall-
fruits in general.

Their flight is rapid and short, passing from tree to tr

In their habits they are shy and recluse, and so great is their activity among
dodging so as to keep the branch or stem between

ee, or from one wood to another, by a series of

undulations. the branches of

trees, that they seldom suffer themselves to be wholly seen,
themselves and the observer.

The sexual differences in plum
about the head, the males and females res
present species, it will be observed, is only
somewhat singular, however, that the young of both sexes, for the fir
have the whole of the brow scarlet (as may be seen on referring to the
resemble the Picus medius as to have been mistaken for that bird, a circumstance which has led to the sup-
position that the P. medius was indigenous to this country, whereas it is strictly confined to the Continent.

We need hardly say that the Picus major resembles its congeners in ‘ts mode of nidification and in the
colour of its eggs, which are of a glossy whiteness. ‘They are deposited in the hole of a tree, often excavated
and enlarged to a considerable depth; generally producing four or five young, which, with the exception of
the crown of the head, as before noticed, resemble their parents ‘n their colours and markings.

The top of the head, a line from the base of the bill descending down the sides of the neck, the back of

, and four middle tail-feathers are black ; wings blackish brown with irregular bars of
white ; forehead brownish white ; cheeks, spots on the lower part of the sides of the neck, the scapularies,
own, especially on the abdomen ; the occiput in the

and under surface white, the latter having a tinge of br

male and the under tail-coverts in both sexes scarlet ; the outer tail-feathers white, with one or more imperfect

lines of black ; bill dark horn-colour ; tarsi deep lead-colour ; irides purplish red.
The Plate represents a male and female, and their young, of the natural size.

age in most of the Woodpeckers consist in a difference of colour or marking
embling each other in every other respect. The male of the
to be distinguished by a narrow occipital band of scarlet. It is
st three or four months of their existence,
Plate), and in this state so closely

the neck, mantle, rump

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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