LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 481 



species ; but concerning its southern boundary in Asia we 

 know nothing except that it is not included as a bird of 

 China by Swinhoe, nor of Persia by Mr. Blanford until 

 we come to Asia Minor where Mr. Danford (Ibis, 1878, p. 7) 

 says it is common in the Bulgar-dagh. It is absent from 

 Syria, but occurs in winter in Greece, and thence westward 

 along the northern seaboard of the Mediterranean, including 

 Sicily and Sardinia ; but it is rare in Spain and is not yet 

 recorded with certainty from Portugal. It however inhabits 

 Algeria, for though formerly North- African examples had a 

 distinct name, Picas ledoucii, given them by Malherbe, they 

 are now admitted not to differ specifically ; and it is found 

 in the Azores, but not in the other Atlantic Isles. Through- 

 out the continent of Europe it is very variously distributed, 

 and in a way that cannot at present be explained, but it is 

 believed to occur in every country, though in parts of some 

 its appearance is seasonal or irregular. 



The male has the beak dark grey : irides reddish-hazel : 

 nasal coverts and forehead brownish-buff ; lores, sides of the 

 head, and ear-coverts, brownish- white ; crown of the head 

 bright glossy scarlet, bounded by black on either side and 

 behind ; from the base of the lower mandible a black stripe 

 passes backward below the ear-coverts ; nape, upper part of 

 the back, scapulars and lesser wing-coverts, black ; middle of 

 the back white, barred transversely with black ; rump, upper 

 tail-coverts and greater wing-coverts, black, the last barred 

 and tipped with white ; wing-quills dull black, with from 

 two to five well-defined, oblong or subtriangular, white spots 

 on the outer web, and well-defined, rounded, marginal, white 

 spots on the inner web, the last extending wholly across 

 the web of the inner quills, and forming four conspicuous 

 and almost regular white bars ; the four middle tail-quills 

 black ; the next pair tipped, and obliquely edged outwardly, 

 with white, with an incomplete subterminal black bar ; the 

 succeeding pair black only at the base, with a subterminal 

 black bar, and a second incomplete black bar on the inner 

 web ; the next white, with one incomplete and one complete 

 black bar ; the outer and obsolete pair black ; the chin, 



