Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/218

Rh hue is black, often handsomely spotted with white, and varied with brilliant red, the latter especially upon the head. Our commonest British species has a yellowish-green for its prevailing colour, instead of the more sombre ordinary hue.

The typical Woodpeckers have the beak perfectly wedge-shaped, cylindrical, the upper edge straight, the lateral ridges removed from the culmen. The outer hind toe is longer than the outer fore one: the wings are somewhat lengthened and pointed, with the third quill longest. The colours of the plumage are chiefly black and white, the latter arranged on the upper parts in large patches or bars. The genus is distributed over both hemispheres.

The Greater Spotted Woodpecker (Picus major, .), though not quite so common in our island as the Green Woodpecker (Brachylophus viridis, .), is more widely spread, extending even to the northern extremity of Scotland and to Ireland. It is found also in all parts of the continent of Europe, from the pine forests of Norway, to the orange-groves of Italy.

This species, which in some of the counties of England is called the Witwall, the Wood-pie, and the French-pie, is about as large as a Blackbird, but of a stouter form. The colour of the upper parts is black, marked on the head, neck, and shoulders with large patches of white, and chequered on the wing-quills with square white spots in alternating bars; the hind head is of a rich crimson hue; the under parts are of a dull white,