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west, for any other bird ? " That is a question which appears to me to require a 

 great deal of answering. Unfortunately the state of Mr. Ley's health is, I regret 

 to learn, very feeble, or a paper from him instead of myself would have been very 

 highly appreciated. 



Mr. D. R. Chapman, another member of the same Naturalists' Club, and 

 an observer of considerable experience, states that he saw a Black Woodpecker at 

 Belmont, about a mile from where Mr. Ley saw it, in the spring of 1879. To make 

 sure he crawled along the meadow for some sixty or seventy yards, and was 

 rewarded by a clear view of the bird. 



Captain Mayne Reid also states that in 1880 he saw two specimens in the 

 woods near Frogmore, Ross, and has noted the occurrence in " The Naturalist in 

 Siluria " (p. 46). As he has ^iven great attention to Natural History, his state- 

 ment is deserving of consideration. See '" The Zoologist " for May last (p. 46). 



Lastly, I come to the bird seen by myself and one of my sons as it was 

 flying from an oak at Dinas, near Brecon, on Whit Monday, 1885, and reported 

 by me in "The Zoologist" (1885, p. 305). I certain!}' should not have noticed it 

 but for its cry, which was most startling, loud, and resonant, and quite unlike 

 anything I ever heard before or since, although I have been a field naturalist for 

 thirty-five years. This cry was very like the cry of the Curlew when un- 

 expectedly disturbed (omitting the " Courlee"), but was louder and more weird- 

 like, and I think I may add, almost human in its shrillness. I admit that this 

 cry is most difficult to describe, and, although the Rev. Clement Ley says that 

 it would not have occurred to him to compare it to the startled cry of the Curlew, 

 still he agrees with me in the main. That it was a Woodpecker, and a Black one, 

 I have no doubt. And if it was not Picus nutrtius, what bird was it? I omitted 

 to state that it flew with a bold sweeping flight, and with its tail slightly forked. 

 I heard its cry twice afterwards, but saw it no more. 



It must not be forgotten that the Bird at Ruckhall Wood was seen in the 

 month of June, that in Devonshire in the month of April, that at Belmont in the 

 spring, that by myself in Dinas, Brecon, on the 25th of May, whilst no date is 

 assigned to Capt. Mayne Reid's specimens ; and, although the Rev. Clement I<ey 

 says that the evidence against the supposition that Picas Martius is migratory 

 seems to him overwhelming, yet the circumstances of the above occurring in the 

 spring and early summer are certainly worth noting. Probably it is more silent 

 in winter, but possibly it may be a stray summer visitant. I think, moreover, 

 that it is almost impossible that the observers in the cases I have quoted could 

 have been mistaken in every instance. It may be remarked with a great deal of 

 truth that most of this has been said, and better said, before. I admit that there 

 are links of evidence yet wanting, and probably most people will agree that the 

 production of a freshly-killed British specimen in the flesh will alone settle this 

 much-disputed question. 



12 OCT. 92 



