THE GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 
341 
I have never met with this beautiful bird in a wild state, in 
Ireland, but have had the gratification of seeing it among the 
natural wood about the northern extremity of Loch Lomond, and 
about Gomston Water, in Lancashire. In October, 1847, I re- 
marked jays to be noisy, but difficult to be seen, in some of the 
plantations, particularly of oak, about the neighbourhood of Tun- 
bridge Wells. I was sorry to observe numbers of them nailed to 
the gable wall of a barn of Mr. Waldo's, near Hever, along with 
magpies, crows, and four-footed vermin. The jay has come under 
my notice in Switzerland and Italy ; in the latter country, on the 
richly wooded banks of the Nera, not far from its confluence with 
the Tiber. 
The Nutcracker {Nucifraga Caryocatodes , Briss.,) cannot be an- 
nounced with any certainty as having been met with in Ireland. The 
late Mr. Templeton’s MS. contains a note that one “ had been shot at 
Silvermines, county of Tipperary, by Mr. J. Lewis.” Unfortunately, 
no more information is given. This bird is a rare visitant to Eng- 
land and Scotland. 
THE GEEATEE SPOTTED WOODPECKEE. 
Picus major , Linn. 
Has in very few instances been noticed. 
Templeton records one obtained in August, 1802, in the county 
of Londonderry, having been sent to Dr. McDonnell of Belfast ; 
and a second having been met with since : — of the former, a beau- 
tifully coloured drawing made by Mr. Templeton is in the posses- 
sion of his family. A specimen which I saw in the museum of 
the Eoyal Dublin Society in 1834, was stated to have been killed 
on the banks of the canal near the metropolis in December, 1831; 
another was seen in company with it.' About the same year a P. 
major was procured at St. Johnstown, county of Tipperary.* In the 
autumn of 1835, one was killed near Drum cliff, county of Sligo, t 
On Nov. 13th, 1839, a male bird of this species, — but notin 
adult plumage, — was shot at Castlereagh, near Belfast, by Mr. 
Greenfield, and liberally presented to the Belfast Museum. It 
* Davis. 
f Ball. 
