Species IX. PICUS TORQUATUS. 



LEWIS'S WOODPECKER. 



[Plate XX. Fig. 3] 



Of this very beautiful, and singularly marked, species, I am unable 

 to give any farther account than as relates to its external appearance. 

 Several skins of this species were preserved ; all of which I examined 

 with care ; and found little or no difference among them, either in the 

 tints or disposition of the colors. 



The length of this was eleven inches and a half; the back, wings, and 

 tail, were black, with a strong gloss of green ; upper part of the head 

 the same ; front, chin, and cheeks, beyond the eyes, a dark rich red ; 

 round the neck passes a broad collar of white, which spreads over the 

 breast, and looks as if the fibres of the feathers had been silvered ; these 

 feathers are also of a particular structure, the fibres being separate, and 

 of a hair-like texture ; belly deep vermilion, and of the same strong 

 hair-like feathers, intermixed with silvery ones ; vent black ; legs and 

 feet dusky, inclining to greenish blue ; bill dark horn color. 



For a more particular, and, doubtless, a more correct account of this, 

 and the two preceding species,* the reader is referred to General Clark's 

 History of the Expedition, now preparing for the press. The three 

 birds I have here introduced, are but a small part of the valuable col- 

 lection of new subjects in natural history, discovered, and preserved, 

 amidst a thousand dangers and difficulties, by those two enterprising 

 travellers, whose intrepidity was only equalled by their discretion, and 

 by their active and laborious pursuit of whatever might tend to render 

 their journey useful to science and to their country. It was the request, 

 and particular wish, of Captain Lewis, made to me in person, that I 

 should make drawings of such of the feathered tribes as had been pre- 

 served, and were new. That brave soldier, that amiable and excellent 

 man, over whose solitary grave in the wilderness I have since shed tears 

 of afiliction, having been cut ofi" in the prime of his life, I hope I shall 

 be pardoned for consecrating this humble note to his memory, until a 

 more able pen shall do better justice to the subject. 



* Wilson here alludes to Clai-k's Crow, and the Louisiana Tanager, both of which 

 are figured in the same plate with Lewis's Woodpecker. 



(188) 



