THE LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 27 
Macpherson observes:—‘“‘I am much struck by the adroit way in which he 
catches a morsel of food which he has let drop: he does so either on his 
chest pressed suddenly to the bark to intercept it, or across the tarsi; on more 
than one occasion I have seen him move a leg to intercept a falling meal- 
worm, and this with unvarying success.”’ 
By July the 14th the Woodpecker had done considerable damage to the 
woodwork of his cage, and on August 4th Mr. Macpherson turned him into a 
small outdoor aviary; he lived on excellent terms with the small birds in the 
aviary, ‘“‘though when kept indoors, he showed a great hatred to some young 
Red-backed Shrikes.”’ 
Mr. Macpherson writes that two examples of this species were brought to 
him in 1894, and his friend Thorpe reared one of them; but it escaped from 
his aviary in the following winter through the folly of a manservant. 
Family—PICIDZE. Subfamily—PICIN. 
THE LESSER SPOTTED WoOODPECKER. 
Dendrocopus minor, LANN. 
ENERALLY distributed over nearly the whole of Europe, breeding as far 
northward as lat. 70° in Scandinavia and North Russia, and in Eastern 
Russia and Western Siberia up to lat. 67°, whilst in Eastern Siberia it does not 
range so far north. Slightly differing races occur in various parts of Asia and in 
Algeria; thus the form from N. Europe and Siberia has been called Picus pipra, 
that from Asia Minor P. danfordi, that in Algeria P. /edouct, but intergrades occur 
in the intermediate localities. The species occurs in Kamtschatka, Japan, and N. 
China. In the Azores it is resident. 
Although smaller, and therefore in that respect less conspicuous than the 
