94 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



Woodpecker sometimes rears two broods in tlie southern 

 portion of New England ; usually, but one. 



PICOIDES, Lacepede. 



Picoides, Lacepede, Mem. Inst. (1799). 



Bill about as long as the head, very much depressed at the base; the outlines 

 nearly straight; the lateral ridge at its base much nearer the commissure than the 

 culmen, so as to bring the large rather linear nostrils close to the edge of the com- 

 missure; the gonys very long, equal to the distance from the nostriU to the tip of the 

 bill; feet with only three toes; the outer lateral a little longer thiin the inner, but 

 slightly exceeded by the hind toe, which is about equal to the tarsus; wings very 

 long, reaching beyond the middle of the tail; fourth and fifth quills longest; color 

 black, with a broad patch of yellow on the crown; transversely banded on the sides; 

 quills with round spots. 



PICOIDES ARGTICVS.— Gray. 

 The Black-backed, Three-toed Woodpecker. 



Picus (Apternus) arcticus. Sw. F. Bor. Am., II., (1831) 313. 

 Picus arcticus. Aud. Syn. (1839) 182. Jb., Birds Amer., IV. (1842) 266. Nut- 

 tall, Man., I. (20 ed. 1840) 691. 



Picus tridactylus, Bonaparte. Am. Orn., II. (1828) 14. Aud. Orn. Biog., II. 



(1834). 



Description. 



Above entirely uniform glossy bluish-black; a square patch on the middle of the 

 crown sai!ron-yellow, and a few spots on the outer edges of both webs of the primary 

 and secondary quills ; beneath white, on the sides of the breast longitudinally striped, 

 and on the sides of the belly and on the flanks and tibial region banded transversely 

 with black; a narrow concealed white line from the eye a short distance backwards, 

 and a white stripe from the extreme forehead (meeting anteriorly) under the eye, 

 and down the sides of the neck; bristly feathers of the base of the bill brown; ex- 

 posed portion of the two outer tail feathers (first and second) white ; bill bluish-black, 

 the lower mandible grayish-blue; iris bluish-black. Female, without yellow on the 

 head. 



Length, about nine and a half inches; wing, five; tail, three eighty -five one- 

 hundredths. 



This species is rare in the three southern New-England 

 States, where it is found only as a winter visitor. In the 

 others, it is not very abundant, and is only resident, in 

 the most northern sections, in the neighborhood of, or in, the 

 deep forests and uninhabited districts, through the year. 



Its habits are similar to those of the other woodpeckers. 

 I have had abundant opportunities of noticing them, and 

 have discovered nothing peculiar in them, or worthy of re- 



