196 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
lies the valley of the Wye, rich in drifts of geological interest, and 
eastward the wide and more extended valley of the Severn, itself an 
ancient sea-bed. Turning southward, I have the Forest of Dean before 
my face, a tract of country as singular as it is celebrated.” 
So much for the district in which the author’s observations 
have been made; now for the notes themselves. We have read 
most of the book, and feel bound to say that, setting aside certain 
inconsistencies (¢.g., pp. 195, 198), repetitions (pp. 27—29, 67— 
70, 77—82, 80—91), the rehabilitation of ancient and marvellous 
tales (pp. 168, 236), and the occasional misapprehension of real 
facts for want of reading, there is much thai will repay perusal, 
either because it is confirmatory of the statements of others on 
points of interest, or because the personal observations of the 
author are li: a sense new. 
Referring to the presence of the Rock Dove, Columba lia, 
in Herefordshire, he writes (p. 27—29) :— 
“Mr. W. Lloyd, a local naturalist [of Kington], reports it as 
breeding on the Stanmer Rocks, a basaltic upheaval near the border- 
line between the counties of Hereford and Radnor—altogether away 
from the sea. It has also a nesting-place in the cliffs overhanging the 
Wye, by the celebrated Symond’s Yat, and all down through Monmouth- 
shire to Caldy Island. There, @ fortiori, they should be found, since 
these cliffs are nearer to its known habitat on the sea-coast.”’ 
(Cf. Bull, ‘ Birds of Herefordshire,’ 1888, p. 176). 
The Great Black Woodpecker, Picus martius, turns up again 
(p. 46), and is characterised as ‘‘ so rare that many ornithologists 
even doubt its existence in any part of England.” 
‘Tt has been observed, however, and in my own grounds in South 
Herefordshire, myself the observer. In the summer of 1880 [here we 
get a date] a pair passed over my head, one flying behind the other at 
an interval of a hundred yards or so. They lit in a tall linden tree 
near the house, only to stay in it for a few seconds; then continued 
their up and down flight towards some hanging woods beyond, where 
I lost sight of and never saw them again.” 
He then alludes to Mr. Chapman's observation of this species 
in the same county, as mentioned in Bull’s ‘ Birds of Hereford- 
shire’ (p.92), and concludes, ‘There can be no doubt, there- 
fore, of the Great Black Woodpecker occasionally visiting the 
