358 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST 



the Lowlands, which had been denuded of wood long before 

 the modern all-enquiring phase of natural history was 

 born. History, and very modern history at that, records 

 the nesting of the Great Spotted Woodpecker only in the 

 more northern counties, in Banffshire, Aberdeenshire and 

 Inverness-shire. It is to be remembered that autumn im- 

 migrations of the Great Spotted Woodpecker to Scotland 

 from the Continent occur with fair regularity, so that care 

 has to be taken lest confusion arise between mere temporary 

 visitors and true residenters. The following records, there- 

 fore, refer only to nesting birds. 



About the years 1830 to 1840, the brothers Stuart were 

 familiar with the Great Spotted Woodpecker on the Spey, 

 and especially in the woods of Tarnaway bordering the 

 Moray Firth : 



The Northern Woodpecker comes to breed in the spring and remains until 

 the decline of summer. Many of the old dead firs are pierced with its holes. 



Writing in 1840, Professor MacGillivray of Aberdeen Uni- 

 versity says that it is 



resident in the woods [of Dee] ; it occurs, but very rarely, in all parts of 

 the district, from Banchory to Glen Lui. In Mar Forest and the Invercauld 

 woods, it is less frequent than it was some years ago. 



Already the few observers had noted that it was seriously 

 on the decrease, and soon afterwards it had entirely disap- 

 peared. Apart from the testimony of naturalists who had 

 found its nesting places, and of woodsmen who remembered 

 it as a breeding species, the forests of the north country 

 retained abundant evidence of its presence. Mr E. T. Booth 

 in his Rough Notes on the Birds observed, etc., 18817, says 



The remains of the old timber in the Valley of the Spey, and in many other 

 parts of Inverness and the adjoining counties, indicate that Woodpeckers 

 were formerly numerous in those districts... On some of the largest and 

 oldest trees, I have counted from twenty to thirty holes bored right into 

 the centre of the stem. 



Dr Harvie-Brown has also recorded his observation of widely 

 distributed nesting sites and has concluded that while 



the most noted haunts of the bird, and localities always quoted by the 

 natives of Strathspey, were Carncruinch once wooded to the summit with 

 old pine in Rothiemurchus, and the old wood of The Crannich, in Duthil; 

 Castle Grant woods, near Grantown ; Tarnaway. on the Findhorn ; and 



