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B B YO C O P U S M A M U T S .
DRYOCOPUS MARTIUS.
Great Black Woodpecker.
Picus martius, Liuu. Faun Sa
• ■- niger, Br
Dryocopus mari
Dendrocopus pr,
Carbonarios «m
Dryotmsm* otar
. 34.
es. Ora., toi»; ti. p. 21.
tts, Bote, Isis, 1826, p. 977.
- forum, ftrehm, Vog. Deutsch!., p. 1S5, tab. 13. tig. 3.
rtius, Bi'alun, ibid., p. 185.
tius, Kaup, Nattiri. Syst., p. 131.
ius, Swains. Faun. Bor.-Amer., p. 301.
•:s) martms, Keys, e t Bias. Wirbelth. Ear., p. 34.
martius, Malh. Métn. Acad. Natio
martius, Malh. Mon. Pieid., torn
. Metz, 184». p. 320.
Tue Great Black Woodpecker was first described as a British bird by Latham, hi 1785, on the authority of
his friend Mr. Tunstall, who informed him that it had sometimes been seen in Devonshire. During the
interval between that date and 1869, no less than thirty notices of its occurrence in various English counties
have been recorded; and every ornithologist of repute, from Montagu to Yarrell, have included it as a
conspicuous species in our avifauna; besides which many other persons—collectors, sportsmen, and country
geufclemen-~fov< «toted to me, and, doubtless, to many others, that, in such and such a wood, on some
named dnv, they bad <m*h a Great Black Woodpecker, one or more affirming that they had followed the
bird frau. iw to tree withuut being able, from its extreme shyness, to get withiu shooting distance. In the
‘ Fid-.!,' of Januarv 29, 1870, Mr. J. E> Harting gave a detailed account of the first .twenty-five recorded
instances of the occurrence of the bird in osi>- island; and in a note with which he has recently favoured
me, he has enumerated a number of others, roakmgu total of thirty reported instances of this bird in Great
Britain. jg p t is not likdv," remark* Mr. Hurting, “ that they can all be mistakes.” .
I regret, however, that I aui unable to endorse this opinion. I had hoped that so,toe a Woodpecker
would have headed our indigenous Picidts; but, of the many persons who have asserted the occurrence of
i’d, not one, I believe, has been able to verify his statement by pointing out where an authenticated
-killed specimen is to be seen; nor, I think, can any public museum or private collection produce one.
■it, however, from the present work a species the appearance of which in our island has been asserted
»any respectable authorities, would scarcely be just. I therefore give a figure of it, for the purpose of
■g those who are unacquainted with the bird what it is like, and how it differs ' com the Greater
d Woodpecker, the Jackdaw, and the Nutcracker, one or. other of which has probably been mistaken
the b
Britts
To Gl
Apart from England, and even just over the North Sea, the Great Black Woodpecki
n the pine-forests of Norway, Sweden, and Finmark it finds a congenial home, brew
r also inhabits Switzerland, Sicily, Turkey, Greece, the Ionian islands, German]
: if I mistake not, Mr. Swinhoe showed me specimens from Northern
Atks range, in North Africa; at least it is not included in Loche’s ' Li
bores of the Mediterranean is the limit of its rang
ires ting accounts of the bird as observed in Swede*
be author’s words :—“ Towards the latter end of S!
ti ll a Dane, the overlooker of a large forest belong)
the way from England to find the * Bo' of the Sjull
«»re what chance there was of getting one. The wc
.. and had in former years noticed their ‘ Bo,'
(vo*«H|nently the European s
frvit* one of th e ntwt ta ti
“ 1 liapi«*rA to be staph* *
he beard that 1 had come aS
for his chief woodman tv uiq
seen birds throughout the -j
high that nobody could get 1
clearing about four miles distant, a:
possibly discover the object of »»or s
start. Our way lay chiefly through
apparently destitute of any species
a Spdkruka was seen to slip quieii;
comer of the square, where he uttei
to cross the remaining space in the
s tolerably common,
and rears its young.
Rusria, Siberia, and Japan ;
'bina. It is not found in
of the Birds of Algeria ’ ;
in a southern direction.
) take the liberty of making
iy 1856,” says Mr. Simpson,
g to Count L . When
•iika (Picus martius), he sent '
id man said he bad frequently
but that it was generally so
hat this year a pair of birds were known to frequent the edge
,nd that if we would accompany him early the next morning we i
ight
»eareh. This was cheering intelligence, and caused us to make an
a monotonous wood of spruce-firs, very uninteresting in appearanc
and
of bird. But on crossing the clearing (a square of about 1000 y«
fe).
v away from the upper part of a tall spruce and to fly towards the for
red a single warning cry and disappeared. It took us a ' cry short time
direction he had gone, and it speedily became manifest tn •• the object