156 PICID.E. 



aware that it has been found in Ireland. From London 

 eastward and northward it has been found in Essex, Suf- 

 folk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, 

 and as I am informed by Mr. Thomas Allis, in Yorkshire. 

 Further northward it is more rare ; but Sir Robert Sib- 

 bald includes Picus varius minor as a bird of Scotland, and 

 this is a name by which our Little Woodpecker, the 

 smallest of the European species, was designated by some 

 authors. Professor Nilsson includes this species in his 

 Fauna of Scandinavia, giving representations of both sexes; 

 and M. Vieillot says, that it is found as far as the eastern 

 part of Siberia. On the southern part of the European 

 continent it is found, though sparingly, as far as Rome, 

 and in Sicily. 



The male has the beak shorter than the head, angular, 

 pointed, and black ; hair-like feathers at the base of the 

 beak, projecting over the nostrils, greyish brown ; forehead 

 dull white ; crown of the head bright scarlet ; occiput and 

 nape black ; irides reddish hazel ; cheeks, ear-coverts, and 

 each side of the nape down to the scapulars, white ; under 

 the ear-coverts on each side a patch of black ; upper part 

 of the back and the scapulars black ; middle of the back 

 white, barred transversely with black ; upper tail-coverts 

 black ; upper part of the wings black ; both sets of wing- 

 coverts black, tipped with white ; quill-feathers greyish 

 black, with angular spots of white on the outer webs, 

 and rounded spots of white on the inner webs, forming four 

 conspicuous and almost regular white bars ; the four mid- 

 dle tail-feathers black, somewhat pointed and stiff; the 

 next on each side tipped with white ; the other two on 

 each side white barred with black ; chin, throat, and all 

 the under surface of the body dirty white ; the sides of the 

 breast marked with a few descending black lines ; under 



