14 Mr. E. Hargitt on the IVoodpeckers 



greenish slaty" [Sivinhoe). Total length 8*5 inches, culmen 

 1*1, wing 5-0, tail 2-9, tarsus 0'88 ; toes (without claws) — 

 outer anterior 0'7, outer posterior 0'65, inner anterior 0*55, 

 inner posterior 022. 



Adult female. Differs from the adult male in Avanting the 

 red patch under the eye. Total leugth 9"0 inches, culmen 

 ri5, wing 4"95, tail 2-95, tarsus 0*85. 



Nestling. In general coloration and marking almost iden- 

 tical with the adult, but differing in having the upper back 

 barred black and dull rufous ; the striations on the throat of 

 a less dark brown, and the under wing-coverts almost uniform 

 pale rufous. 



Swinhoe^s type specimen of the female has the head darker 

 and more washed with rufous-brown than any other example 

 I have seen. It is apparently a fully adult bird, but all the 

 other specimens which I have examined have the head and 

 neck conspicuously lighter than the rest of the body and of 

 a buff colour. The descriptions of the adult birds are taken 

 from examples in the British Museum, and I have also given 

 that of Swinhoe^s male type, a bird apparently not fully adult. 



Swinhoe first recorded this species in ' The Ibis '' for 

 1861, p. 207, under the heading of Brachypternus badius. 

 The specimen was procured by himself in Foochow, and he 

 afterwards more fully described the species in the ' Proceed- 

 ings of the Zoological Society,' 1863, p. 87, under the name 

 of Brachypternus fohensis , giving the soft parts and measure- 

 ments of both sexes, and adding, " I have never received this 

 bird from any part of China but Foochow, where it is not 

 particularly common." The above-mentioned ornithologist, 

 in ' The Ibis ' for 1868, p. 63, mentions having received from 

 one of his hunters three females and one male, collected on 

 the Tiugchow mountains, about 120 miles north-east from 

 Amoy. Swinhoe remarks that one female had the head 

 and neck of a pale reddish cream-colour, the feathers marked 

 with blackish brown and chestnut in the middle ; and this he 

 believes to be the fresh-moulted bird. I would observe that 

 examples having the bill entirely black, and the abdomen 

 with dusky crescent-shaped markings, are, in my opinion, im- 



