THE FRANXO-GERMAN WAR. 'JJ 



was remarkable for having the throat and breast chesnut 

 colour. It may have been only a stain. All varieties of 

 Woodpeckers are curious. I have a cock, shot at Easton 

 in Norfolk on the i8th of June, 1870, which is strongly 

 tinged or stained with this chesnut colour on the occiput and 

 scapulars.* If Malherbe, the author of the great work on 

 Woodpeckers, had been alive, he could have settled the 

 question. He lived at Metz, and I had the pleasure of 

 being introduced to his widow. In the Transactions of the 

 Imperial Academy of Metz for 1866, will be found a memoir 

 of him, and a list of his works. Only the duplicates of his 

 collection of Woodpeckers — in number about 200 — are in 

 the Museum ; the rest were sold. At his death he left some 

 1,500 stuffed birds, and a collection of eggs, which were 

 purchased by the Freres de Beauregard, of Thionville, at 

 whose college I saw them. No localities marked upon the 

 tickets. How much this diminishes the interest of any 

 collection ! If Naturalists would reflect that the particulars 

 known only to them will infallibly be lost after their death, 

 they would surely be more careful on this point. His 

 Natural History library was also disposed of 



The titles of the books upon the " Ornis " of Lorraine 

 are: — 



1st. A catalogue of Buchoz, 1771. 



2nd. Faune du department de la Moselle, Holandre, 

 1825. 



3rd. Supplement, 1835. 



° My father also has or had a similar one, which was shot near 

 Norwich. At a gentleman's house at Brandon I saw a curious young 

 Greater spotted Woodpecker with the nape and lesser wing coverts choco- 

 late brown. I have seen another very similar in a collection at Cam- 

 bridge ; also another — a cock — in the late Mr. Newcome's collection, 

 with brown back and very brown wings ; and again another is recorded 

 in the " Zoologist " having the scapulars and a portion of the back " an 

 intensely rich brown colour" (p. 8199). 



