SPOTTED WOODPECKER. GREEN WOODPECKER. 97 



county of Wicklow; and the other, an immature female, 

 shot in the same county during the autumn of 1847. Mr 

 Thompson has recorded the above facts in the Appendix to 

 vol. iii. as the only information known to him on the subject. 



From different data since collected, we believe this species 

 to have been at one period indigenous to our island, as the 

 name of woodpecker is well understood in the country, al- 

 though incorrectly applied to several other species, as the 

 creeper and the titmice. 



As the family of the Picidae only thrive in woods of 

 large growth, we might expect the occurrence of the wood- 

 pecker in those large forests with which, in remote ages, 

 Ireland was identified, and which were destroyed to aid in the 

 subjugation of the island ; necessarily, their shelter being re- 

 moved, the species declined in numbers, and became rare and 

 at last lost in a country where at one time it existed in 

 numbers. 



Rutty, in his Natural History of the County of Dub- 

 lin, mentions " Picus varius minor," the lesser spotted wood- 

 pecker, as occurring commonly about Dublin ; and proceeds 

 to describe its food as consisting of grubs and small worms 

 found under the bark of trees. By Smith, its occurrence is 

 also noted in the county of Waterford. From these different 

 sources, which constitute all that we know of its occurrence 

 in Ireland, we may presume that it was at one time indigenous. 



Habitat Western Europe. 



SPECIES 96 THE GREEN WOODPECKER. 



Picus viridis. Linn. 

 Pic vert. Temm. 



THIS beautifully marked woodpecker has even occurred in 

 fewer instances than the preceding, which is, perhaps, some- 

 what curious, as it is the more widely distributed of the two 

 in England. 



An adult male, in the author's collection, was obtained at 

 Sallymount, in the county of Kildare, on the 27th September, 

 1847. The gentleman who procured it remarked that some 

 weeks previously he had observed two birds of this species 

 frequenting some plantation adjacent to his house; but at 

 the time, his gun being in Dublin undergoing repairs, he was 

 under the necessity of waiting for some ten or twelve days, 

 during which time both woodpeckers remained in the neigh- 

 bourhood.* 



* Mr. R. Glennon. 

 H 



