432 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
great distinctness that he saw Picus martius in Ruckhall Woods, 
Baton Bishop, about the year 1874, in company with Mr. du 
Buisson and his daughter, that he also saw it and heard it at 
Mount Edgecombe in Devonshire in 1876, and that he heard its 
ery twice unmistakably in Pengethley Gorse, Ross, once unmis- 
takably in the parish of Fownhope (certainly a most likely 
place), and once dubiously, distant, and uncertain, in the parish 
of Little Doward ; and what is of the utmost value in cases like 
this, he adds, he possessed the faculty, and still retains it, of 
never forgetting the note of any bird which he has once heard, 
and he points out that without the knowledge of this note (and 
I quite agree with him) he would have been unable to recognise 
the bird. He graphically adds :—‘‘Can any sane man have 
mistaken Picus martius flying at less than twenty yards distance 
towards the north-east of the observer, the sun being in the 
west, for any other bird?” That is a question which appears to 
me to require a great deal of answering. Unfortunately the 
state of Mr. Ley’s health is, I regret to learn, very feeble, or a 
paper from him instead of myself would have been highly 
appreciated. 
Mr. D. R. Chapman, another member of the same Naturalist’s 
Club, and an observer of considerable experience, states that he 
saw a Black Woodpecker at Belmont, about a mile from where 
Mr. Ley saw it, in the spring of 1879. To make sure he crawled 
along the meadow for some sixty or seventy yards, and was 
rewarded by a clear view of the bird. 
Captain Mayne Reid also states that in 1880 he saw two 
specimens in the woods near Frogmore, Ross, and has noted the 
occurrence in ‘The Naturalist in Siluria’ (p. 46). As he has 
given great attention to Natural History, his statement is 
deserving of consideration. See ‘The Zoologist’ for May last 
(p. 46). 
Lastly, I come to the bird seen by myself and one of my sons 
as it was flying from an oak at Dinas, near Brecon, on Whit 
Monday, 1885, and reported by me in ‘The Zoologist’ (1885, 
p. 305). I certainly should not have noticed it but for its cry, 
which was most startling, loud, and resonant, and quite unlike 
anything I ever heard before or since, although I have been a 
field naturalist for thirty-five years. This cry was very like the 
cry of the Curlew when unexpectedly disturbed (omitting the 
