BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE. 251 



the under surface was of the ordinary white or greyish ground- 

 colour. 



Hoopoe. — The Eev. C. W. M. Bartholomew, Rector of 

 Glympton, wrote me word as follows : — " As to the Hoopoe, 

 my little boy of ten came to me and described a bird he had seen 

 in Glympton Park last April [1889] ; he had seen it go in and 

 out of a round hole (made probably by a Green Woodpecker). 

 His description of the markings, crest, and pink colour made me 

 guess what it was. I went up with him to the deer park, and we 

 watched, but in vain .... I have no doubt it was" — a Hoopoe. 



Kingfisher. — Mr. Darbey had sixteen in his workshop in 

 course of preservation, in the first week of December, 1890. On 

 the 22nd of the same month Mr. Wyatt told me he had received 

 eleven lately. I was informed, on good authority, that a man 

 who had been for a walk with his gun along the Cherwell near 

 Banbury, in the early part of the frost of 1890-91, returned with 

 sixteen Kingfishers in his pockets. 



Green Woodpecker. — Two were picked up dead at the end 

 of December, 1890. Like those found in the winter of 1880-81 

 (especially January), they had their tongues stretched out to 

 their full length. 



Greater Spotted Woodpecker. — A female bird was shot at 

 Broughton on Feb. 15th, 1889, and another of the same sex at 

 Finmere about the same time. One was seen by a friend of 

 Mr. Lambert at Marston on Dec. 15th, 1889. One morning the 

 Rev. M. A. Mathew met a boy just outside Christ Church, .in 

 St. Aldate's, carrying a fine live male in a cage; it was just 

 caught, and, he presumed, on the nest An adult male was 

 unfortunately shot in a row of pollard willows at Banbury on 

 May 27th, 1890. It had evidently been sitting on eggs. Another 

 male was shot at Bodicote early in December, 1890. 



Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. — One was seen in Trinity 

 College Gardens on March 13th, 1890 (Mr. W. G. Reeve in litt.). 

 A nest, from which the young had just emerged, was found by 

 Mr. Lambert in a hole in a small partly-decayed branch of a tree 

 near Old Marston on June 15th, 1890. 



Wryneck. — The present rarity of this bird is remarkable. 

 One which Mr. Lambert saw in the Parks at Oxford on Sept. 12th, 

 1886, was the only one he had met with there down to the close 

 of 1889* I heard one of these birds at Bloxham about 6 a.m. on 



