THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 77 
was remarkable for having the throat and breast chesnut 
colour. It may have been only a stain. All varieties of 
Woodpeckers are curious. I have a cock, shot at Easton 
in Norfolk on the 18th of June, 1870, which is strongly 
tinged or stained with this chesnut colour on the occiput and 
scapulars.* If Malherbe, the author of the great work on 
Woodpeckers, had been alive, he could have settled the 
question. He lived at Metz, and I had the pleasure of 
being introduced to his widow. In the Transactions of the 
Imperial Academy of Metz for 1866, will be found a memoir 
of him, and a list of his works. Only the duplicates of his 
collection of Woodpeckers—in number about 200—are in 
the Museum; the rest were sold. At his death he left some 
1,500 stuffed birds, and a collection of eggs, which were 
purchased by the Fréres de Beauregard, of Thionville, at 
whose college I saw them. No localities marked upon the 
tickets. How much this diminishes the interest of any 
collection! If Naturalists would reflect that the particulars 
known only to them will infallibly be lost after their death, 
they would surely be more careful on this point. His 
Natural History library was also disposed of. 
The titles of the books upon the “Ornis” of Lorraine 
are :— 
Ist. A catalogue of Buchoz, 1771. 
2nd. Faune du department de la Moselle, Holandre, 
1825. 
3rd. Supplement, 1835. 
° My father also has or had a similar one, which was shot near 
Norwich. Ata gentleman’s house at Brandon I saw a curious young 
Greater spotted Woodpecker with the nape and lesser wing coverts choco- 
late brown. I have seen another very similar in a collection at Cam- 
bridge; also another—a cock—in the late Mr. Newcome’s collection, 
with brown back and very brown wings ; and again another is recorded 
in the “ Zoologist ” having the scapulars and a portion of the back “an 
intensely rich brown colour” (p. 8199). 
