90 



range is very restricted, as will be seen from the following note kindly communicated to us by 

 our friend Mr. Howard Saunders, who first described this bird : — " This species would seem 

 to take the place of true G. viridis throughout the whole of that portion of Spain which lies 

 south of the Guadarrama ; and in all probability its range extends to the valley of the Ebro. It 

 will be interesting to learn whether it reaches to the foot of the Pyrenees on the Spanish side, 

 inasmuch as all specimens which I have examined from the French side belong to true G. viridis. 

 When I published my list of the birds of Southern Spain in ' The Ibis,' 1871, p. 65, 1 erroneously 

 described this species as G. viridis. Its note seems to be very similar ; but in a series of some 

 rifty or sixty eggs I have noticed that on the average those of the present species are a trifle 

 smaller than those of its congener. My specimens are from Valencia, Granada, Andalucia, and 

 Castilla, showing that it is a generally distributed, and not a mere local form." 



Major Irby has also kindly sent us the following note : — " With regard to this Woodpecker 

 I can only say that in habits, note, and nesting it is exactly similar to Gecinus viridis. I have 

 never found it in the vicinity of Gibraltar ; indeed I have only met with it in the Coto del Eey 

 and Coto de Dohana, near Seville ; it is most abundant in the former, and appears to be a very 

 local bird. After you told me of your discovery of the difference between it and G. viridis, I went 

 to the Coto del Eey in January 1872, and succeeded in getting six specimens. When there in 

 April and May 1859, I recollect it was much more common, and I shot an old male, which, as 

 Lord Lilford and I both thought it to be G. viridis, we threw aside. I also found a nest, but 

 did not take it. As all my notes to you are the result of personal observations, I will not 

 trouble you with the names of museums in which I have seen this species, as there is no certainty 

 of the localities from which the specimens came." 



We are further indebted to Lord Lilford for the following note : — " If this species is, as I 

 believe it to be, the Common Green Woodpecker of Central Spain, I found it very abundantly 

 about Aranjuez and near Madrid in 1865, and obtained many eggs from the former locality, 

 though I never took the trouble to shoot a specimen. Its habits appear to resemble very closely 

 those of our British Gecinus viridis ; but it is perhaps a trifle more noisy and restless, and not so 

 difficult of approach. I obtained many specimens this year in the Cotos, below Seville, where it 

 is very common. It appears to avoid the pine-woods, and to haunt chiefly the comparatively open 

 country dotted with cork, white poplar trees, willows, &c. Manuel de la Torre, so often men- 

 tioned by me in ' The Ibis,' brought me a male and female of the present species shot near 

 Arganda, in New Castile, in April of this year, which fact goes in support of my view that this 

 is the Common Green Woodpecker of Central Spain, as it undoubtedly is of the south of that 

 country. I did not meet with any Green AVoodpeckers in the Basque provinces, or in Arragon 

 in 1867 ; but my stay in those parts was very short, and of course I cannot say that this bird may 

 not be met with in them. I did not meet with it on the north side of the Guadarrama range 

 during our stay at San Ildefonso in 1865. This year we found many fully fledged young birds 

 in the Coto de Donana between the 10th and 15th of May. The usual number of eggs appears 

 to be five." 



The figures in the Plate have been taken, the adult birds from a pair given us by Major 

 Irby, the young from a specimen lent to us by Mr. Howard Saunders ; and the descriptions are 

 taken from the same birds. 



