20 
and the smallest of the European horned owls, viz. the eagle owl, 
and the scops, are often to he heard at the same time wherever the 
spurs of the mountains are fringed with olive and orange trees. 
The great black woodpecker is, I believe, confined to the pine 
forests of the Pyreneean districts ; and beyond recording their 
occurrence, I can say but little of the great, middle, and lesser 
spotted woodpecker. Our green woodpecker {Oe.c,inus viridis) is, 
however, represented by a species apjjarently intermediate between 
G. viridis and G. canus, which I have recently described in the 
P) oceedings of the Zoological Society, under the name of Gecinus 
sharpii, after the talented joint-author with Mr. H. E. Dresser of 
the Birds of Europe now in course of publication. This species, 
which has grey cheeks, and generally brighter colours, with a 
moustache in the male of brilhant crimson, ranges at least as far 
as the Guadarrama mountains, hut at the Pyrenees yields to the 
common form. The Algerian species, G. vaillantii, has not yet 
been discovered in any part of Spain. The wryneck and the 
cuckoo are both spring visitants, but the next in order, the great 
spotted cuckoo, was long considered to be more of an African than 
a European bird. It is, however, very abundant in spring, deposit- 
ing its eggs in the nest of the common magpie, and occasionally 
in that ot the raven. Of rollers, bee-eaters, and hoojjoes, suffice 
it to say they abound, and the common and red-necked goatsuckers 
arrive in large numbers in spring ; the latter perhaps is more 
common in the south, where it remains to breed. As tliis species 
has been obtained in England by Mr. John Hancock, and may be 
confounded with its congener, it may be as well to state that the 
red-necked may always be distinguished by its lo/rger size and lighter 
and more rufons colour ; the russet collar is an infallible test in the 
adult, when it is tipped with white, but is not so clear in young 
birds. 
All the true European species of swifts and swallows are fouml 
in Spain, and the same may be said of the flycatchers, the little 
red-breasted flycatcher, {Erythrosterna pa7"va,) which has lately 
visited our shores, being a regular autumn migrant to S. W. Spain, 
where 'it remains till March. It jDartakes of the pugnacious habits 
of the robin, a single bird taking possession of a garden, and maiu- 
tainijig itself with obstinacy against any intruder of its own species. 
Of the shrikes, tlie woodchat is tlie commonest • the vinous- 
