PICID^. Ill 



possession of llr. I^ewton's family, though in a very bad state of preser- 

 vation, and has been seen by us, and is a female bird. There was, 

 however, possibly some mistake about its being killed in this county. 

 This fine Woodpecker is only to be found in pine-forests, and is therefore 

 most unlikely to occur in England. It is not admitted into the British 

 List in recent works on ornithology.] 



Great Spotted Woodpecker. Dendrocopus major 



(Linn.). 



[French Pie, Pied Woodpecker, Magpie Woodpecker.] 



Eesident, but more often met with in winter and spring than at other 

 times of the year, and probably some arrive from the continent late in 

 the autumn. 



Though not common anywhere this Woodpecker appears to be generally 

 distributed throughout the county in wooded districts. It is occasionally 

 seen at all times of the year in woods near Plymouth, Slapton Ley, 

 Kingsbridge, Bovey Tracey, Ashburton, Chudleigh, on the slopes of the 

 Haldons, Exwick Woods near Exeter, Rousdon, and in North Devon. 



A. nest was obtained in Ham AVoods in 1835 (E. M., Rowe's Peramb. 

 Dartmoor, p. 233). Mr. T. H. A. Briggs found a nest with young iu a 

 hollow oak in Saltram Wood, June 14th, 1860. It bred in the woods by 

 the side of the Tamar in 1877 (J. Gr., Zool. 1877, p. 494). It is also 

 known to have bred on Haldon and in Exwick Wood. 



Some years since Mr. T. Wrey Harding, of Upcot, near Barnstaple, 

 informed us that a pair of the Great Black Woodpecker bred annually 

 in his beautiful grounds ; but this we found to be a mistake, the birds in 

 question being the Great Spotted Woodpecker, and to this confusion 

 between the two birds we have little doubt many of the reported occur- 

 rences of the fine Scandinavian Woodpecker in this country must be 

 traced. In North Devon the Great Spotted Woodpecker, an extremely 

 handsome bird, with its vividly contrasted colours of red, black, and 

 white, can only be considered rare, mostly affecting mazzard orchards, 

 in which a fine pair in our collection were obtained, and fruit-gardens ; 

 ■we have also seen it sometimes in parks and woods, w'here tall poplar 

 trees seemed its favourite haunt ; but it is certainly the scarcest of 

 the three English Woodpeckers in tlie West Country. In the collection 

 of birds at Westward Ho! College there is an example obtained in a fruit- 

 garden. It is said to be fond of fruit having kernels which it can crack, 

 hence its partiality to the mazzard orchards, the " mazzard," as every- 

 body knows, being an extremely sweet and juicy little black cherry, 

 abundantly cultivated in some parts of the county. From its hal)it of 

 creeping round the tree on which it is feeding when any one approaches 

 for the purpose of concealment, and from the success of this manaaivro, 

 it may not l;o quite so rare as it is generally supjjosed to be. 



It has a monotonous note, oft repeated, of " quct, quet," and makis 



