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of commoner occurrence ; and our friend Mr. E. R. Alston writes to us that it " appears to be 

 increasing in numbers as a winter visitor to the northern and eastern counties, rarer in the west." 

 Messrs. Gray and Anderson observe : — " This Woodpecker, which of late years has become rather 

 a common visitor to the eastern districts of Scotland, has been obtained several times in Ayrshire, 

 and once on the outskirts of the county. One was shot at Cummock ; another at Fullarton, near 

 Froon, on the 2nd November 1868; and a third, about five weeks later, near Ayr. For these 

 notices we are indebted to Mr. Oliver Eaton, bird-preserver, Kilmarnock. A specimen was shot 

 at Inverkip, Renfrewshire, in October of the same year. This locality is very close to the 

 boundary of our district." We have already alluded to its occurrence in the Orkneys in large 

 numbers, and we have received the following note from Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., which may be 

 inserted here : — " The variety of the Greater Spotted Woodpecker with grey wing-coverts and 

 striated flanks, which I have lent you, was the first ever obtained in Shetland, where the species 

 has only appeared upon two occasions. Dr. Saxby states that it was shot by him in Unst, on the 

 3rd of September 1861, the wind having been blowing from the south-east for about two days 

 previously (Zool. 7752). During that month and the next many more specimens of Picus major 

 were killed throughout the whole extent of Shetland and Orkney. Strange to say, there was not 

 one male among them, and, with one exception, they were all birds of the year (Zool. 7933). 

 Nor was the visitation confined to one locality. From Norfolk and from Cambridgeshire came 

 similar reports of their surprising numbers (Zool. 7847). Seven years afterwards they again 

 spread themselves over the east coast from Shetland southwards, and for the second time not one 

 adult bird was obtained by Dr. Saxby (Zool. 1761)." A still more curious circumstance in 

 connexion with this unexpected migration is the fact that in September 1861, according to 

 Herr Sysselmaand Muller, it was common on the Faroes, this being the identical month in 

 which Dr. Saxby first noticed the influx of migration into Shetland; and it is much to be 

 regretted that more examples were not preserved, seeing that one of the specimens procured in 

 the latter island is scarcely referable to Picus major. Towards the south-western part of England 

 it is not so common. Mr. J. Brooking Rowe considers it scarce in Devon. Mr. Rodd says, in 

 Cornwall it is " rare, sometimes seen in the eastern woodlands, and a specimen now and then 

 obtained from Treneere Lawn and Trevaley, near Penzance." Mr. Thompson has recorded it 

 from Ireland, as follows : — " A specimen of P. major, preserved in the Museum of the Royal 

 Dublin Society, was shot in the vicinity of that City a few years since. In the manuscript notes 

 of the late Mr. Templeton it is stated that an individual of the same species was sent to him in 

 August 1802, from the county of Londonderry." 



It is a very common bird throughout all northern Europe. Kjgerbolling says : — " Here in 

 Denmark it is both a resident and a partial migrant or wanderer; for some do not leave the 

 neighbourhood of their summer quarters, or at least only wander a short distance away in the 

 autumn, whereas others (in September and October) wander far away, and only return back in 

 the spring, in the month of March." In Norway, Mr. Collett tells us that it " breeds sparingly 

 above Trondhjem, up to the Polar Circle. On the sides of the Fells it is no longer found, in the 

 subalpine region. Near Christiania it is the commonest Woodpecker, and is found as plentifully 

 in the conifer as in the green woods." Mr. Alexander Clark Kennedy also writes to us : — " I have 

 often met with this species in the vast pine forests of Norway ; but in my opinion it is not so 



