l-IO Mr. E. Hargitt on the Woodpeckers 



sending me one of these Owls as a donation to the Norwich 

 Museum, remarks that before the bird was skimied, the wings, 

 when carefully closed, extended ^q of an inch beyond the 

 tail, whereas in the otherwise excellent figure of this species 

 in Legge^s * Birds of Ceylon,^ the tail is represented as extend- 

 ing beyond the wings. I may add that the coloration of 

 that figure agrees admirably with the specimen (a female) 

 now sent; but another skin previously obtained by Mr. 

 Bligh in the same locality, and also preserved in the Norwich 

 Museum, is in the rufous phase, the rufous tints of its 

 plumage being very rich and bright. 



XIV. — Notes on Woodpeckers. — No. X. On the Genus 

 Thriponax. By Edward Hargitt, F.Z.S. 



In pursuance of my studies of the genera of Woodpeckers, I 

 have recently worked out the species of the genus Thripo- 

 nax, which embraces eight birds of large size, bearing some 

 resemblance to the Great Black Woodpecker of Europe, 

 Dryocopits martins. In these short essays Avhich I send from 

 time to tiine to ' The Ibis,' I have tried to remodel the arrange- 

 ment of the species of Woodpeckers rather than to attempt a 

 discussion of the characters of the various genera ; and it may 

 be that when I come to consider the latter portion of the 

 subject in its entirety, I may have to make some alterations 

 in the generic nomenclature employed. Considering there- 

 fore, for the present, that Dryocojms and Thriponax can be 

 generically separated from each other, on account of the 

 dense feathering of the tarsus in the former genus, it follows 

 that Dryocopus richardsi of Tristram, from the island of 

 Tzus Sima, is a Thriponax ; and this is certainly one of the 

 most interesting points determined in the present paper, as 

 the locality lies so far outside the hitherto supjjosed range of 

 the genus, which is almost characteristically Indian, as op- 

 posed to Dryocopus, which is esrentially a Pal<earctic genus. 

 I am now able to recognize eight species of Thriponax, an 

 increase of six upon the number enumerated by Malherbe in 



