344 Dr, A. Hall on the Mammals and Birds 



species may spring from one. "We remarked tlie same defects 

 some time ago in the author's introduction to his Australian flora. 

 The time was when it was the failing of naturalists to separate 

 varieties from each other as species, in order to avoid diflBculties 

 of distribution. Now the opposite tendency prevails, to account 

 for the number of species by their supposed mutability and mi- 

 grations. So science in its progress always sways between ex- 

 tremes, and the middle way of truth appears only after these 

 oscillations have spent themselves. j. w. d. 



ARTICLE XXXIIL— 0?i tlie 3Iammals and Birds of the Dis- 

 trict of Montreal. By Archibald Hall, M,D., L.R.C.S.E. 



(Continued from page 316.) 



Picus puhescens. Downy Woodpecker. 

 P. ( Trichojncus) puhescens. Baird ! 



v.s.p Bill black ; legs and feet bluish ; irides hazel ; eggs 6, 

 white. 



Dorsal aspect. Frontlet brownish white ; crown of head jet 

 black, bordered laterally by a white streak commencing over the 

 eye, and posteriorly by a crescent of crimson with which the white 

 streaks are cQntinuous ; immediately behind the eye a broad black 

 streak begins, and including the auriculars, terminates below the 

 crimson crescent on the nape of the neck, meeting its fellow of 

 the opposite side ; sides of neck white, the white projecting back- 

 wards to the nape of the neck, where it is intersected by a narrow 

 mesial line of black ; interscapular region black, the centre fea- 

 thers black; scapulars and rump black; small wing coverts 

 black, the lowest row tipped with white ; greater wing coverts 

 black with a large white spot towards their tips ; primaries and 

 secondaries brownish black barred with white ; the two lateral 

 tail feathers, and a spot on the third white, with rudimentary 

 black bars ; all the other feathers black. 



Ventral aspect. White, usually soiled on the chin and throat; 

 the feathers as well as those of the interscapulary region very 

 silky. 



3rd primary longest; 4th next; 2nd next; 1st shorter than 

 the 6th. Length 6J^ inches ; alar expanse 10 inches. In the fe- 

 male the occipital band is black. 



