394 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS 



Fam. FICID^. 



GREAT BLACK WOODPECKER. Ficas martins, 

 Linnseiis. PI. 16, figs. 1, 2. Length, 17 in.; bill, 

 2-45 in. ; wing, 9 in. ; tarsus, 1*4 in. 



Hah. In Europe, from the Arctic circle to Spain, and 

 in Asia from Turkey to Japan. 



One or more, Devonshire, 1785-90 : Latham, "Gen. Syn. 

 Suppl," p. 104. 



One shot at Blandford, Dorset: Pulteney, "Catalogue of 

 the Birds of Dorset," 1799, p. 6. 



One shot at Whitchurch, Dorset, 1799 : Pulteney, I.e. 



One said to have been shot in Lancashire by Lord Stanley : 

 Montagu, " Orn. Diet. Suppl.," 181.3; Latham, "Gen. 

 Hist. Birds," 1822, vol. iii., p. 4oO ; and Collingwood, 

 "Hist. Faun. Lancashire and Cheshire," p. 16; but it 

 was found that in Lord Stanley's copy of Latham's 

 work he had erased the passage and written in the 

 margin, "a mistaken idea;" ZooL, 1865, p. 9626. 



One shot on the trunk of an old willow tree in Battersea 

 Fields, Middlesex, in the winter of 1805 : Montagu, 

 o^?. cit. The record of an accurate naturalist, although 

 he does not state that he saw the bird. 



One formerly in the collection of Donovan, and now in the 

 Derby Museum, Liverpool ; said to have been killed 

 in this country : Yarrell, " Hist. Brit. Birds," -h'd ed., 

 vol. ii. p. 138. 



One or more considered by Yarrell to have occurred in 

 Scotland, from a statement by Sir Robert Sibbald in 

 his Historia AnimaUuin in Scotia, p. 15 ; but this 

 statement is shown to have been misconstrued : E. C. 

 Buxton, ZooL, 1865, p. 9730. See also Newton in 

 Yarrell's "British Birds," 4th ed., vol. ii. p. 483. 



One shot near Crediton, in collection of Mr. Newton, of 

 Okehampton, Devon : Rowe, " Nat. Hist. Dartmoor," 

 p. 233 : Rodd, Field, Oct. 28, 1865, p. 308. This bird 



