140 The Field Naturalist's Quarterly May 



as a field ornithologist, — a cry like that of a curlew when 

 unexpectedly disturbed, but louder and more weird. . . . 

 That it was a woodpecker, and a black one, I have no doubt. 

 It flew with a bold sweeping flight and with its tail slightly 

 forked." Here again what could the observer have seen if it 

 was not the Great Black Woodpecker ? What bird is black 

 and has that peculiar flight, that loud cry ? 



Again, some years ago a farm bailiff in the county of Rut- 

 land, since dead, told me that about the year 1850, while 

 walking outside Wardley Wood in the neighbourhood of 

 Uppingham, he saw fly close past him a bird which he re- 

 cognised at once as a woodpecker from its appearance and 

 flight, but saw to his surprise that it was black. Now this 

 observer, though familiar with all the common birds of the 

 country-side, most of which he had shot at one time or 

 another, knew no more about the Great Black Woodpecker 

 controversy than he did about the sea-serpent. The sight 

 of a black woodpecker, when he expected to see the familiar 

 one of green and gold, evidently impressed him so much that 

 he recollected it even after fifty years were passed. His 

 evidence, as far as it goes, is unimpeachable. Either, then, 

 this was a genuine Picus Martins or a melanism of the 

 Gecinus viridis. 



Information as to another specimen, said to have been 

 obtained near Shrewsbury, and not, I think, mentioned in 

 Mr Harting's list, has lately reached me. It is now in the 

 hands of H. D. Crompton, Esq., of Wiston Hall, St James's 

 Road, Edgbaston, who tells me it was originally in Lord 

 Hill's collection, and may be forty years old. 



Finally, in December 1897, Mr Harting exhibited a speci- 

 men in the flesh, which had been shot, beyond all cavil, on 

 September 8, 1897, at Otley in Yorkshire. But the sceptics 

 were equal to the occasion : this bird, they said, must be 

 one of two released by Lord Lilford near Oundle about 

 1890. Is not this a long life to give so striking a bird in a 

 country where the professional ornithologist is always on the 

 prowl with a gun for rare specimens ? It was fortunately 

 one month too early for this bird to be identical with one 

 which escaped from the Zoological Gardens on October 9. 



As matters now stand, it would require at least three birds 



