30-1 BULLETIN OF THE 



same consideration." * Professor Bairri in his account of these species, ex- 

 pressly refers to •California specimens that have less white on the wings 

 than the one form and more white than the other, f This with the color 

 differences existing between Florida specimens and New England ones, 

 similar in character to these, though less in degree, seems to confirm the 

 necessity alluded to by Professor Baird of regarding the small spotted 

 woodpeckers in question as forming only two species, — the Picus villosus 

 and Picus pubescens, — with parallel and remarkable geographical varia- 

 tions. So great is the difference, however, between typical representatives 

 of the two leading forms of each, that their discoverers, with too few speci- 

 mens of each to enable them to detect the gradual passage of the one into 

 the other, — a fact which now seems well substantiated, — were quite 

 excusable in regarding them as distinct species. Several other sup- 

 posed species, as indicated by the synonymes given above, and previously 

 by other authors, have been based on phases of immaturity. The young 

 of either sex often have the crown spotted with red or yellow, while the 

 mature male alone has red on the head, and in which it is usually confined 

 to a narrow occipital transverse band. In respect to the number, shape, 

 position, and size of the white spots on the wings, however, there is al- 

 ways considerable variation in specimens from the same locality, these 

 variations being dependent upon neither sex nor age. 



Florida specimens of not only Picus pubescens and P. villosus, but of 

 Centurus carolinus, Sitla carolinensis, and Si/la pusilla, often have the 

 plumage of the lower surface of the body so much soiled and darkened by 

 running over the blackened trees in recently burnt districts as to ma- 

 terially alter their appearance, so that they might almost be taken for 

 distinct species, as previously noted by Audubon. J 



72.* Picus pubescens Linne. Downy "Woodpecker. 

 Picas pubescens Linne, Syst. Nat., I, 175, 1766. — Wilson, Audubon, Box a- 



PARTE, NoTTALL, BaIKD, CaSSIN, CtC 



Pints (Dendrocopus) pubescens Swainson, Faun. Bor. Am., II, 307, 1831. 

 Picus (Dendroco/ms) mcdianus Swainson, Ibid., 308. (Described from New 

 Jersey specimens). 



* Birds of North America, p. 91. 



t In accounting for these intermediate forms, Mr. Cassin adopts the very convenient 

 but, as it seems to me, uncalled-for and incorrect theory of hybridity, so often resorted 

 to in similar cases. Under Picus villosus, he says that J', villosus and P. Harrisii prob- 

 ably associate in a region intermediate between the proper ranges of the two species, 

 "and produce hybrids, which present difficulties to naturalists." Under Picus pu- 

 bescens lie makes similar remarks in respect to P. pubescens and P. Liairdneri. Proc. 

 Phil. Acad. Nat. Sri., 1863, pp. 200, 201. 



J Orn. Biog., Vol. II, p. 82. 



