483 



instance. One of the strongest pieces of evidence in favour 

 of the admission of this Woodpecker was Montagu's asser- 

 tion, afterwards repeated by Latham and many other authors, 

 of the then Lord Stanley having shot a Picus martins in 

 Lancashire. But Mr. T. J. Moore found that in Lord 

 Stanley's copy of Latham's work he had erased the passage 

 and written on the margin " a mistaken idea." This remark, 

 it is believed, will apply to all the other supposed cases, 

 except a few which there is reason to think have been recorded 

 from unworthy motives. The statement of Gould that 

 "there is not a certified British-killed specimen in any of 

 our museums or private collections " seems to be perfectly 

 true ; * and it must be added that most of the persons 

 professing to have seen an example of this species in England 

 have been singularly unfortunate as to the locality of their 

 vision. This species is almost strictly an inhabitant of pine- 

 forests from the arctic circle to Spain, where Lord Lilford 

 found it in the summer of 1876, and in Asia from Turkey to 

 Japan. But, though a bird of powerful flight, it may be said 

 scarcely ever to leave its pine-forests, and hence within any 

 period that we may deem historic there has been no part of 

 England suited for its habitation. In Scotland it may have 

 been otherwise, but there is no evidence to that effect ; for 

 Sibbald's statement, to which some weight has been attached, 

 does not, when rightly understood, bear on the point, f This 

 brief notice cannot be concluded without reference to Mr. 

 Hudleston's excellent narrative (Ibis, 1859, pp. 264273) of 

 the discovery by himself and the late John Wolley of some 

 nests of Picus martins in Sweden, which added much to our 

 knowledge of its habits. 



The next species for consideration is the Middle Spotted 

 Woodpecker, Dendrocopus medius, which Pennant in 1768 

 said (Br. Zool. Ed. 2, i. p. 180) he was informed was found 

 in Lancashire. Though in his supplemental volume of 



* Notwithstanding the examples recorded by Mr. Garth and Rodd (Zool. pp. 

 1298, 9847). 



f He used the name "Picus Martins ", as did most old writers, in a general 

 sense for birds that climbed trees, including not only all Woodpeckers, but the 

 Nuthatch and Tree-Creeper (see above, page 464, note). 



