PICID&. 45 



numerous, although it cannot be called common. I 

 have seen the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in the 

 Eton College playing-fields, in Windsor Park, and 

 in Ditton Park. Mr. Wolley informs me that he still 

 occasionally sees one in the ' playing-fields,' but that 

 it does not appear to be so numerous there as was 

 formerly the case. 



This species is found in the neighbourhood of 

 Reading, Newbury, Maidenhead, and Hungerford. 

 Almost every year examples are obtained at Eton 

 Wick, and occasionally at Winkfield. Several were 

 taken at Dorney, near Brill, some years ago, one of 

 which is now in the collection of the Rev. Bryant 

 Burges, at Latimer. Upon the 24th of January, 1867, 

 a specimen with an extremely brilliant red head was 

 shot at Langley, near Stokes; and in 1865 and 1866 

 others occurred in the neighbourhood of Windsor. 

 Lord Clifton, writing in the Zoologist for April 1867, 

 records that 'About four Sundays ago I observed 

 a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker on an elm close to 

 my window (at Eton), but the sparrows soon drove 

 it away.' On October 22, 1867, an adult male of 

 this species was shot at Stoke Park, Bucks; it was 

 being preserved by Mr. Ferryman, of Datchet, where 

 I saw it, and I remarked that the feathers about the 

 breast and vent were very dirty and worn. Mr. R. B. 

 Sharpe tells me that the breast-feathers of Wood- 

 peckers received from abroad are usually much worn 

 by constant friction, and that these feathers, which 





