BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA. 55 



CENTURUS CAROLINUS (Linnaeus). 



RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER. 



Adult male. — Forehead and nasal tufts light red, the latter usually 

 paler (sometimes dull whitish) anteriorly; crown, occiput, nape, and 

 hindneck bright poppy red, lighter or more scarlet on hindneck; back 

 and scapulai-s regularly and sharply barred with black and white, 

 the white bars usually rather narrower than the black interspaces, the 

 wing-coverts similarly barred but the white bars relatively narrower, 

 the secondaries also with broad white bars changing to spots on the 

 distal quills; primaries and primary coverts black, the former 

 blotched with white subbasally, the longer quills (except outermost) 

 narrowly edged with white distally (except in worn plumage), the 

 others tipped or broadly margined at tip with white; upper rump 

 barred with black and white, but bars less sharply defined than on 

 back; lower rump white, usually barred, spotted, or broadly streaked 

 with black (rarely immaculate or nearly so); upper tail-coverts 

 white, often immaculate, but (usually) with a narrow shaft-streak 

 of black, at least basally; tail black, the inner web of middle pair of 

 rectrices white with bars or transverse spots of black (exceedingly 

 variable as to number, size, etc.), the outer web usually with a wedge- 

 shaped longitudinal streak of white on basal half, at least, the lateral 

 rectrices tipped with white and with broad (usually interrupted) bars 

 of white on distal portion; loral, superciliary, auricular, suborbital, 

 and malar regions pale to very pale buffy grayish, usually more or less 

 tinged with pale red (sometimes wholly pale red, like frontal region); 

 chin and uj^per throat similar but paler dull grayish buffy white (some- 

 times pale red or more or less tinged with the same), passing poste- 

 riorly into pale yellowish smoke grayish on chest, breast, and sides 

 (the yellowish tinge, however, sometimes absent) ; abdomen pale red 

 or reddish pink, this color sometimes tinging, more or less strongly, 

 the breast, etc.; flanks and under tail-coverts white, barred or 

 streaked with black or with V-shaped markings of the same, the white 

 ground color usually tinged, more or less, with dull yellowish; bill 

 blackish or slate-blackish, the basal portion of gonys sometimes light 

 grayish; iris varying from ferruginous to scarlet; legs and feet 

 olivaceous, or grayish olive-green; length (skins), 200-237 (221.9); 

 wing, 123.5-139 (131); tail, 72.5-85 (77.7); culmen, 28-33 (29.8); 

 tarsus, 20-23 (21.9); outer anterior toe, 16.5-20 (17.9).« 



Adult female. — Similar to the adult male, but whole crown and 

 occiput gray (paler anteriorly, the occiput frequently intermixed, 

 more or less, with black), and red of abdomen usually much paler as 

 well as more restricted; length (skins), 196-238 (215); wing, 122-133 



a Forty-one specimens. 



