8136 



Birds, — Reptiles. 



of a century afterwards, no results, we believe, have ever been pub- 

 lished. 



We close the book, and heartily recommend it to our readers, 

 assuring them that it is impossible to read its pages without receiving 

 abundant instruction and improvement : they also generates a feeling of 

 satisfaction to know that one is a learner in the same school ; and as 

 the young painter exclaimed, on contemplating the chef (Tceuvre of a 

 master, " ed io anche sono pittore," so, in the contemplation of so 

 much goodness and wisdom and modesty, do we feel inclined to say 

 rejoicingly, " and I also am a naturalist." 



J. G. 



The Great Black Woodpecker in the New Forest. — Assuming Mr. W. Farren's 

 statement (Zool. 8091) of the great black woodpecker's breeding in the New Forest to 

 be correct (although, according to his own showing, it may he open to doubt), I can- 

 not but regret that his business interests so far prevailed over the good feelings which 

 generally belong to professed naturalists, as to induce him to plunder the nest and 

 attempt the capture of the old birds. In this case the loneliness of the situation, and 

 the fact of the birds having been hitherto undisturbed, will be a sufficient answer to 

 the plausible excuse so often put forward for killing every vara avis which visits this 

 island, namely, that some other person would have had the prize if he had not taken 

 it. The great black woodpecker has such an extended range in Europe, and the bird 

 has been observed, though rarely, in so many parts of this country, that its visits can 

 hardly be due to such accidents as bring over to us straggling species from America ; 

 so that when a pair of these birds take up their quarters in one of the few suitable 

 localities to be found with us, prepare their nest, and commence incubation, I think 

 many readers of the ' Zoologist' will agree with me in wishing them to be protected 

 rather than destroyed. This is the first record of the species having bred in this 

 country, and Mr. W. Farren will now have the satisfaction of knowing that he has 

 done his best to prevent such an occurrence again taking place. — E. W. H. Holds- 

 worth ; 18, Osnaburgh Street, July 4, 1862. 



Toad found in digging Clay for Bricks. — In the 'Zoologist' for May, 1859 

 (Zool. 6537), there is a notice from me of the occurrence of live toads underneath a 

 bed of clay. The short account there given has been adopted by Mr. Gosse, in his 

 lately-published volume of 'The Eomance of Natural History,' of which volume a 

 review appears in 'The Friend' for March last. The reviewer is justly cautious of 

 admitting such statements as proof " that toads can exist without food, light or air, 

 immured for thousands of years," and, by citing an instance observed by himself, he 

 intimates the probability of there being, in all such cases, some unobserved communi- 

 cation between the prison of the immured and the external air. He states that he 

 once found a common natterjack, " enjoying himself to his heart's content at the very 

 extremity of a long and tortuous gallery, excavated by a sand marten, in the perpen- 

 dicular face of an abandoned gravel-pit on Blackheath," and he adds, " had a well been 



