GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 105 



diate neighbourhood smce." — Ed.] Mr. W. Fitzherbert 

 Brockholes says it has been killed in the Claughton 

 Woods, and Mr. Chamberlain Starkie writes me that 

 they have had it at Ashton Hall, whilst a pair fre- 

 quented a wood in Bowland the whole of the spring of 

 1884. At Grange, according to Mr. Anthony Mason, 

 it is occasionally seen, but appears to be very rare in 

 Furness on the whole. 



Authority has laid it down that no properly authenti- 

 cated occurrence of the Middle Spotted "Woodpecker, 

 Dendrocopus niedius (L.), has yet been recorded in Britain, 

 but unless it be granted that the young of D. major pre- 

 serves the crimson colour on the crown until the following 

 spring, it seems difficult to reconcile the following note 

 by the late Mr. Thomas Garnett with any other supposi- 

 tion. He writes in the 3/ar/. of Xat. Hist, for 1822, 

 " A pair of birds had hatched their young in a hole in a 

 decayed ash, about twenty feet from the ground ; there 

 were two young ones, which I secured, as well as one of 

 the old ones, and they are all now in the possession of 

 a friend of mine. The old one measured 9j inches long, 

 and weighed 46|- dwts. an hour after it was killed : the 

 forehead is a dirty buff, and the whole crown of the 

 head a bright crimson." Mr. Tom Garnett informs me 

 that his grandfather told him this nest had been 

 taken near Clitheroe. The " Middle Woodpecker, I'iriis 

 mediiis,^' mentioned by Pennant (" British Zoology," 

 1776-77) as having been shot in Lancashire, was pro- 

 bably the young in autumn of the Great Spotted Wood- 

 pecker. 



