Mr. E. Hargitt on a new Woodpecker. 113 



(De Oca), in the collection of jMr. Sclater, I was surprised to 

 find the two birds perfectly distinct, the Arizona species 

 having the hack uniform, and the bird from Jalapa having 

 the back barred with white. In this paper I shall endeavour 

 to show which is the true P. stricklandi of Malherbe, and to 

 prove that the Arizona bird is fully entitled to specific 

 rank. 



Malherbe (Revue Zoologique, 1845, p. 373) described, 

 under the title of Pints {Ltuconotopicus) stricklandi, a bird 

 which he considered to be a young female, and in his Mono- 

 graph he stated that he had seen a specimen of the adult male 

 in the British Museum ; also an adult female in a collection 

 sent to Mr. Wilson of Philadelphia, and a young male in the 

 Darmstadt Museum. The type specimen had the back banded 

 with white ; and Malherbe asserts that it is a young bird, and 

 that the bars disappear with age. The specimen is certainly 

 not fully adult, because in adult plumage the breast is spotted, 

 whereas in the type, as described and figured by Malherbe, 

 the breast is striped; but, judging by analogy, the bird 

 could not be a very young one, or the top of the head would 

 be red, as in the young male of the Arizona species ; and it is 

 quite wrong to say that the white bars disappear with age, 

 because, as the specimen in Mr. Sclater's collection shows, 

 the fully adult has also the back barred. Malherbe, in his 

 Monograph, gives descriptions of the four examples seen by 

 him, and he commences with that of the adult male, taken 

 from the British Museum specimen. This bird, the liabitat 

 of which is stated on the label to be " Mexico,^^ has the red 

 occipital band without any red on the crown, and is un- 

 doubtedly an adult bird ; but it has the back uniform, and I 

 take it to belong to a species entirely distinct from P. strick- 

 landi. The next specimen described by the author is that of 

 an adult female, which he says only differs from the adult 

 male in wanting the red occipital band ; we may therefore 

 conclude that the back is uniform, as in the British Museum 

 specimen, and that it belongs to the same species. The young 

 male is next described ; and this, according to Malherbe, 

 diflFers in many respects from the adult male, the chief point of 



