NOTES. 337 



sent me a series of fifteen from Thanet (East Kent), shot on 

 October 14th, 15th and 19th ; all of these, with two exceptions, 

 were of the Continental form [Regulus c. cristatus). On 

 October 24thj I shot a male, also of this race, in a pile of 

 faggots on the sea-shore near Pevensey, Sussex, and as this 

 was in the afternoon, it is quite possible that it was a straggler 

 from a small flock that had already jDassed on. On October 

 30th and November 4th, others were taken at St. Catherine's 

 Lighthouse, Isle of Wight. Prior to this, the last " Goldcrest 

 year " was 1908, and through the kindness of Mr. A. McL. 

 Marshall I have lately re-examined the series that he obtained 

 in that autumn from St. Catherine's Lighthouse. Out of a 

 dozen specimens, two males, killed on November 1st, are 

 Continental birds. N. F. Ticehurst, 



WILLOW^TIT IN LANCASHIRE. 



I RECENTLY examined two " Marsh " Tits in the Warrington 

 Museum, and suspecting that they were Willow-Tits {Parus 

 atricapillus khinschmidti) , obtained permission to submit 

 them to Mr. H. F. Witherby, who confirmed my opinion. 

 One of these birds, Mr. Madeley informs me, was killed at Pad- 

 gate, near Warrington, in 1890, but the locality and date of the 

 other specimen, which has been in the museum about forty 

 years, cannot be traced. In both birds the brown-black caps, 

 the graduated tail, and pale edges to the secondaries, are very 

 distinct, and the flanks of the Padgate bird are well marked 

 with buff. I have not, up to the present, identified the Willow- 

 Tit in Cheshire ; black-capped Tits which I have examined in 

 other museums, and those which I have been able to watch 

 closely in the field, have all been Marsh-Tits. 



T. A. Coward. 



GREAT GREY SHRIKE IN SUSSEX. 

 Although not an unusual visitor to us, I think it of sufficient 

 interest to record a male shot on the marshes at Pett, on 

 January 18th, 1911. H. W. Ford Lindsay. 



THE BRITISH GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 



Dr. Hartert, who first differentiated Dendrocopus major 

 nnglicus {Nov.Zool, 1900, 528), gave as its distinguishing charac- 

 ters the slender, narrow bill, the relatively short wing, and the 

 usually more rusty colour of the under-parts. When examin- 

 ing a series of Great Spotted Woodpeckers lately, I was 

 struck by a further characteristic, viz., the relative shortness 

 of the first primary. This is best brought out by measuring 



