GREAT SrOTTED M'OODPECKER. 145 



or north-east. They moult at a late period, as several of 

 tliose wliicli have come into my hands have been in that state 

 as late as the 10th of November."''' T. C. Heysham, Esq. 

 has recorded two instances of this bird being obtained in the 

 vicinity of Carlisle, where it is considered a rare species. Sir 

 William Jardine sends me word that it has occurred in Dum- 

 fries-shire, and is met with occasionally still farther north. 

 Mr. Selby also says he has seen it in Scotland, on the banks 

 of the river Spey, and amid the wild scenery of the Dee. 



Mr. Thompson of Belfast says,* a specimen of Picus 

 major, preserved in the Museum of the Royal Dublin So- 

 ciety, Avas shot in the vicinity of that city a few years since ; 

 and in the manuscript notes of the late Mr. Templeton, it is 

 stated that an individual of the same species was sent to him 

 in August 1802, from the county of Londonderry. 



This species is found in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and. 

 Russia, and from thence southward over the European con- 

 tinent to Italy. Mr. H. E. Strickland says that it is com- 

 mon in Smyi-na. 



The old male has the beak about as long as the head, of a 

 dark and shining horn colour, with a few greyish hair-like 

 feathers projecting over the nostrils ; forehead, ear-coverts, 

 and a circle round the eye, dull dirty white ; irides red ; top 

 of the head dark bluish black ; occiput bright scarlet ; nape 

 of the neck black, — this colour passing forward, above a white 

 spot, by a narrow stripe, which at the side of the neck di- 

 vides, one stripe passing forwards to the base of the beak, the 

 other backwards towards the wings ; the back, rump, and tail- 

 coverts, black ; the scapulars white, forming an elongated 

 patch ; the smaller and the outer larger wing-coverts black ; 

 the inner larger Aving-coverts white, and partly hid by the 

 scapulars ; the quill-feathers black, with from two to five 

 well-defined, rather elongated white patches on the outer web 



* Proceedings of the Zool. See. for 1835, p. 79. 

 VOL. II. L 



