XVI INTRODUCTION. 



New Forest j and there was a colony for many years at Stand- 

 lake, in Oxfordshire. Of twenty nests taken there, one 

 was in a faggot-stack, one in a hole of a decayed elm, two in 

 holes of pollard ash, four in holes of poUard willow, and 

 twelve in holes in decayed apple-trees in orchards. On the 

 subject of Linnets (p. 28) the reader may be referred to Dr. 

 E. Coues's Monograph of the genus published in the ' Proc. 

 Acad. Nat. Sci. PhUad.^ 1861, p. 373 — with some additional 

 remarks, 1863, p. 40. The change of plumage which takes 

 place in the Crossbills (p. 29) and Pine Grosbeak (p. 113) is 

 very remarkable. Mr. Wheelwright's observations on .the 

 subject (' Zoologist,' 1862, p. 8001) are well worth reading. 

 No instance is on record of the nesting of the Rose-coloured 

 Pastor (p. 30) in Great Britain; but the birds have been 

 seen and shot several times in the middle of summer. Dr. 

 Moore mentions one which was shot in Devon in June, and 

 a young one without a crest in October. A pair were shot 

 in July at Rosemount, near Glasgow, where they had been 

 observed for some days previously. 



It is stated (p. 32) that the Green Woodpecker is unknown 

 in Ireland. This is very near the truth ; but a single in- 

 stance of its occurrence at Granard, co. Longford, is men- 

 tioned by Thompson in the Appendix to the third volume of 

 his Nat. Hist. Ireland, p. 441. In the autumn of 1861 the 

 Greater Spotted Woodpecker (p. 32) was observed to be very 

 numerous in Orkney and Shetland {cf. Saxby, ' Zoologist,' 

 1862, p. 7932). 



The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (p. 32) , although almost 

 unknown in Ireland, has yet occurred oftener, so far as is 

 known, than the Green Woodpecker. Glennon, of Dublin, 

 has preserved six or seven, at various times, sent to him from 

 different parts of Ireland. 



Although most of the small birds which periodically visit 



