15 



13 



Birds,' ii. p. 129: — 'A few years since a communication was made to the Zoological Society of 

 London that two examples of the Great Black Woodpecker had been at that time killed in a 

 small wood near Scole Inn, in Norfolk.' 



" Mr. Stevenson (B. of Norfolk, i. p. 291) has identified these birds with some shot by Mr. F. 

 Drake, and from the information he has obtained, has good grounds for concluding that they 

 were not the Great Black, but the Greater Spotted species. 



" Although much search was made, neither Mr. Stevenson nor Dr. Sclater could find the 

 passage referred to by Yarrell; but I accidentally lighted on it in looking through Eyton's 

 ' Catalogue of British Birds,' p. 28, footnote, where it is stated that a notice was read before the 

 Linnean Society, November 17th, 1835 ( — 37), of a Picus marines shot near Billingwood, which 

 place is close to Scole, on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk. 



" Yarrell (I. c.) mentions a pair frequently seen near Christchurch : possibly his informant 

 may have been the Earl of Malmesbury. He also mentions two supposed occurrences in 

 Yorkshire. 



" Hewitson notes a pair seen at Yarm by Mr. T. Meynell (Hew. i. p. 238). 



" Yarrell says (I. c.) it is recorded to have been killed in Lincolnshire, probably referring to 

 the Mag. of Nat. Hist. ix. p. 599. 



" Macgillivray had a pair, supposed to have been shot near Nottingham (B. B. iii. p. 79). 



" Mi - . Clark-Kennedy alludes to one seen by a Mr. Walter at Windsor, and one by himself 

 at Ditton Park (Birds of Berks and Bucks, p. 178) ; and Mr. Harting gives an account of one seen 

 in Caen Wood by Mr. Spenser (Birds of Middlesex, p. 112). 



" It is included in Hastings's ' Natural History of Worcestershire ' (p. 66). 



"About March 3rd, 1846, a Woodpecker (believed to have been the Picus martius) was shot 

 by an under-gardener of the name of Kitchen, at Ripley Castle, near Ripon. It was seen in the 

 flesh by Mr. J. Jaques, a friend of Mr. J. C. Garth, who briefly recorded its occurrence in the 

 'Zoologist' (p. 1298), and to whom I am indebted for these particulars. He never himself saw 

 the bird, which was stuffed (as he informs me) by the late Mr. John Stubbs, of Ripon, for the 

 head gardener, whose name was Elliot. It has now been totally lost sight of. In my opinion it 

 was probably a case of mistaken identity; but a good authority appears to think otherwise 

 (cf. Ibis, 1866, p. 411). 



" In the ' Naturalist ' for 1851 (p. 20), Mr. J. M'Intosh says he has seen Great Black Wood- 

 peckers at Claremont, in Surrey, and Charborough, in Dorsetshire, and that at the former place 

 they made their nest, three years, in a hole in a brick wall, and plastered up the aperture. 



" That this should be credited was not to be expected (see Zool. p. 3088) ; and the observer, 

 though alluding again to it (Naturalist, p. 132), brings no fresh facts forward to confirm his 

 extraordinary statement. 



"It is included in the Somersetshire fauna by the late Mr. Baker (Som. Archaeological 

 Proc. p. 144), whose grandson believes that the specimen alluded to was shot at Street, near 

 Glastonbury. Mr. C. Smith, the best authority on the birds of that county, shows no inclination 

 to admit it. 



" At p. 3279 of ' The Zoologist,' Mr. Newton records one seen, but not obtained, near Saffron 

 Walden. 



