GREAT BLACK WOODPECKER. 9 1 



cry may often be heard. On the Woolhope Hills, and in Haywood 

 Forest, it is also to be heard in some seasons. Its numbers vary 

 in different years, but it seems to have become less frequent than it 

 was formerly. The true explanation has yet to be given of the use 

 of the serrated claw of the middle toe of the Nightjar. 



Wordsworth, who knew the Nightjar well, and had every 

 opportunity of observing its habits, notices that the Dor-hawk, as 

 it is in the North locally called, utters its cry on the wing, and says, 



The busy Dor-hawk chases the white moth 

 With burring note. 



And again. 



The burring Dor-hawk round and round is wheeling, 



That solitary bird 



Is all that can be heard 

 In silence deeper far, than deepest noon. 



Gilbert White says of it — 



While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd Churn Owl hung, 

 Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song. 



[Caprimulgus ruficollis — Red-necked Nightjar.] 

 Once in Great Britain in 1862, 



Family— PICTD^. 



Genus— PICUS. 



PICUS MARTIUS— Great Black Woodpecker. 



The admission of the Great Black Woodpecker into the 

 avifauna of Britain is considered doubtful in the " Ibis Catalogue 

 of British Birds" (1883). 



Yarrell declines it altogether, and it is adversely bracketed. 



There can be no doubt, however, of its having been observed 

 on several occasions in Herefordshire. Captain Mayne Reid saw 

 two specimens in the woods near his residence at Frogmore, Ross, 

 and noted the occurrence in the Live Stock Journal. The Rev. 



