58 



6 



Professor Doderlein considers it rarer in Sicily than Picus major, and has only procured a 

 few specimens from the interior of the island. Count Salvadori says that this species is a resident 

 throughout Italy, though nowhere numerous, and, according to Savi, is not so plentiful as the 

 Greater Spotted Woodpecker. Dr. Giglioli found it pretty common near Pisa. It is a resident 

 in Styria, as stated by Seidensacher ; and Dresser also found it by no means rare in that country. 

 Lord Lilford notices it as common in winter in the woods of Epirus ; and according to Linder- 

 mayer it is found in the Peloponnesus and in the woods of Northern Greece. Messrs. Elwes and 

 Buckley write as follows concerning it : — " the commonest Woodpecker in Macedonia, where it 

 seems to prefer the alders and willows in the marshy forests to the larger and sounder timber of 

 the hills." For the following note we are indebted to Mr. Robson : — " This species inhabits the 

 woods of European and Asiatic Turkey, but is not so numerous as the Middle and Great Spotted 

 Woodpeckers. They continue in the country all the year and breed, a partial migration taking 

 place in the autumn, as they are then found in situations in which they are not met with in 

 summer. Specimens are sometimes taken by bird-catchers with limed twigs on low trees in hedge- 

 rows during the autumn migration." Professor von Nordmann found it common in the Crimea ; 

 and in winter it occurs in the gardens of the steppes. Two individuals he procured on the river 

 Codor, in Abasia, were considerably below the size of ordinary European specimens, but are other- 

 wise exactly similar. 



Canon Tristram did not procure it in Palestine, and observes : — " It is difficult to account 

 for the absence of any representative of P. minor, or of the genus Gecinus, so abundantly repre- 

 sented from Britain to Japan. They may possibly linger in very small numbers, but have 

 probably been exterminated from the scarcity of timber." 



Pallas describes a small Woodpecker, which he calls Picus pipra ; and ornithologists are 

 divided in their opinions as to which of the two species of Lesser Spotted Woodpecker this name 

 should be referred to. Although it is difficult to make out from Pallas's description, it would 

 appear from the account he gives that he had not clearly distinguished between the European 

 bird and its Siberian representative ; for he says that his Picus pipra is common throughout 

 Russia and Siberia. 



The following notices of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker probably refer to P. kamtschatkensis, 

 though the occurrences are recorded under the heading of P. minor: — Messrs. Dybowski and 

 Parvex met with it in Dauria, where it was not very common in the larch-woods, but was more 

 numerous on the islands and banks of the Onon, Dr. Radde, who procured it in Siberia, says 

 that it does not frequent the large forests, but prefers the small growth, especially aspen and 

 poplar trees, and is often found on the willow-covered islands of the rivers, living in pairs in 

 company with Titmice. On the islands of the Onon, in October, it was observed on the smooth 

 trunk of young balsam-poplars. Dr. von Middendorff procured it at Udskoj-Ostrog in July. 

 Dr. von Schrenck, who does not admit the difference between the Siberian bird and our European 

 one, writes that " it is a resident and not rare in the poplar, birch, aspen, and other non-evergreen 

 groves in Amooiiand, and in the willow groves on the islands in the Amoor river. On these 

 islands I have often seen them, as for instance, at Kidsi, Chacha, at the mouth of the Chongar, 

 and other places. Maack and Maximowicz procured it in August and November on the Amoor 

 Islands near Kidsi, and the former also near the mouth of the Ssungari on the 5 th of July. It 



