THE GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 341 



I have never met with this beautiful bird in a wild state, in 

 Ireland, but have had the gratification of seeing it among the 

 natural wood about the northern extiemity of Loch Lomond, and 

 about Coniston Water, in Lancashire. In October, 1847, I re- 

 marked jays to be noisy, but difficult to be seen, in some of the 

 plantations, particularly of oak, about the neighbourhood of Tun- 

 bridge Wells. I was sorry to observe numbers of them nailed to 

 the gable wall of a barn of Mr. Waldo's, near Hever, along with 

 magpies, crows, and four-footed vermin. The jay has come under 

 my notice in Switzerland and Italy ; in the latter country, on the 

 richly wooded banks of the Nera, not far from its confluence with 

 the Tiber. 



The Nutcracker {Nucifraga Caryocaiactes, Briss.,) cannot be an- 

 nounced with any certainty as having been met with in Ireland. The 

 late Mr. Templeton's MS. contains a note that one " had been shot at 

 Silvermines, county of Tipperary, by Mr. J. Lewis." Unfortunately, 

 no more information is given. This bird is a rare visitant to Eng- 

 land and Scotland. 



THE GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 



Picus major, Linn. 



Has in very few instances been noticed. 



Templeton records one obtained in August, 1802, in the county 

 of Londonderry, having been sent to Dr. McDonnell of Belfast ; 

 and a second having been met with since : — of the former, a beau- 

 tifully coloured drawing made by Mr. Templeton is in the posses- 

 sion of his family. A specimen which I saw in the museum of 

 the Royal Dublin Society in 1834, was stated to have been killed 

 on the banks of the canal near the metropolis in December, 1831; 

 another was seen in company with it. About the same year a P. 

 major was procured at St. Johnstown, county of Tipperary.'* In the 

 autumn of 1835, one was killed near Drumcliff, county of Sligo.f 

 On Nov. 13th, 1839, a male bird of this species, — but not in 

 adult plumage, — was shot at Castlereagh, near Belfast, by Mr. 

 Greenfield, and liberally presented to the Belfast Museum. It 



* Davis. t Ball. 



