276 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



be seen strips which the bird has chipped way in its search 

 for the grubs. Mr. Boyes saw one in his garden which was so 

 tame that it allowed him to approach within fifteen yards, 

 and watch it flying from branch to branch, exactly as a Thrush 

 would do, and sit up in like manner across the branches, 

 and not lengthwise, which is unusual. 



[The Hairy Woodpecker, {Dendrocopus villosus, L.), a 

 North American species, is reported as having occurred in 

 two instances in Yorkshire, but the circumstances are not 

 sufficiently trustworthy to justify my placing the bird in the 

 county list. 



Near Brighouse, a pair were obtained (upwards of a 

 century ago), at Kirklees Hall, and passed into the collection 

 of the Duchess of Portland (Latham, " Gen. Syn." H,. p. 578). 



At Whitby, one was killed early in 1849 (Wiggins, Zool. 

 1849, p. 2496 ; Bird, torn. cit. 2527 ; Newman, op. cit. 1851, 

 p. 2985 ; Bird, torn. cit. p. 3034). This specimen is in the 

 South Kensington Museum.] 



LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 



Dendrocopus minor (L.). 



Resident, extremely local and confined to thickly wooded localities. 

 in which it occurs in limited numbers. 



Probably the earliest reference to this bird in Yorkshire 

 is in Leyland's Halifax Catalogue, 1828, where it is described 

 as very rare. 



Thomas Allis, 1844, wrote : — 



Picus minor. — Lesser Spotted Woodpecker — Met with near Don- 

 caster ; a few specimens have been obtained near Sheffield ; it is 

 rarely seen at Hebden Bridge ; a nest was taken, with several young, 

 a few years ago by a son of Joseph Cooper, Botanical Gardener to Earl 

 Fitzwilliam, in the woods at Wentworth ; it is also met with in the 

 woods at Thirkleby near Thirsk. 



The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is rarer in Yorkshire 



