GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 191 



tember, 1868, the species was plentiful in Sutherlandshire, Ross- 

 shire, Morayshire, and Inverness-shire, and I traced its migrations 

 southwards as far as Berwick, through the counties of Aberdeen, 

 Kincardine, Forfar, Fife, and Haddington, having obtained speci- 

 mens from all these districts. Seven birds are now before me, but 

 only one is a male in perfect plumage, the others being apparently 

 young birds. Other specimens which were offered to me were in 

 bad plumage, as if they had just moulted. In the western counties 

 fewer specimens occurred, though I was able to procure them from 

 Argyleshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, and Wigtown- 

 shire. In the midland counties it occurred in Perth, Stirling, 

 Dumfries, and Roxburgh. Altogether I examined upwards of 

 sixty specimens, for information regarding which I am indebted 

 to various correspondents, among whom I may mention Lord 

 Binning,* Mr Angus, Mr Harvie Brown, Mr James Murison, 

 Tilly.naught, Banifshire, who presented me with two specimens, 

 and Mr R. Scot-Skirving of Campton, East Lothian. 



OBS. Sir Robert Sibbald, in his " Scotia Illustrata," includes 

 the GREAT BLACK WOODPECKER (Picus martins) in that section of 

 the work entitled "Historia Animalium in Scotia," p. 15. It may 

 also be here observed that, in the University Museum at Aber- 

 deen, there are two specimens of this bird labelled "Nottingham," 

 in the handwriting of the late Professor Macgillivray, and referred 

 to by that author at page 79 of his general work on British Birds. 



In Donovan's British Birds, a figure is given of the THREE- 

 TOED WOODPECKER (Picus tridactylus) on plate 143, vol. vi., and 

 in the accompanying letterpress it is stated that a specimen of the 

 bird had been "lately shot in the north of Scotland;" upon the 

 authority of which the species was inserted among the migratory 

 visitants to the British Islands. No other specimen appears to 

 have occurred since Donovan's time. His volume is dated 1808. 



The LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER (Picus minor) is included 

 in Don's Fauna of Forfarshire, and also in Pennant's Cale- 

 donian Zoology. Mr Shearer states that it has once been ob- 

 served in Caithness, and Mr Tate, in his list of Alnwick birds, 

 includes it as a species found on the borders. I have, however, 

 never been able to examine a specimen killed in any part of 

 Scotland. 



* Now the Earl of Haddington, his Lordship having succeeded to the title 

 through the lamented death of his father, the tenth Earl, in July, 1870. 



