piciNiE. 277 



a wide brownish-black streak, darkest posteriorly, passes backwards 

 from below the eye ; and between this and the hind-neck is a patch 

 of white, beginning behind the eye, and ending abruptly ; upper 

 plumage black, with white cross-bands on the back, and the usual 

 rows of white spots on the wings ; the four middle tail-feathers 

 wholly black, and the next pair white only on the exterior margin ; 

 outermost and penultimate tail-feathers barred on the outer web 

 with white, and having a single white bar, or sometimes two, crossing 

 the feathers towards its tip ; upper tail-coverts spotless black ; throat 

 dull white ; the rest of the under-parts brownish-white, with 

 narrow dark central lines to the feathers. Tiie adult male has a 

 wide crimson occipital crescent. 



Bill plumbeous ; irides red ; feet brown. Length 5|- inches ; 

 wing 3^ to 3f ; tail 1| ; bill at front -fj. ; foot nearly If. 



This species, the fully adult male of which differs conspicuously 

 from the other members of the group, by its broad crimson 

 occipital crescent, has only, as yet, been found on the South-east 

 Himalayas, in Nepal and Sikim, where it is not very rare. 



163. Yungipicus pygmseus, Vigors. 



Picus, apud Vigors, P. Z. S., 183— Blyth, Cat. 300— Horsf. 

 Cat. 991 — P. trisulensis, Light. — P. Mitchelli, Malherbe — 

 Dend. moluccensis, apud Hodgson — P. zizuki, apud Gray, 

 — HoDGS., Cat. Nep. Birds. 



The Himalayan Pigmy Woodpecker. 



Descr. — Above black, the head pale ashy, a little tinged with 

 brown, and bordered laterally with black ; from amid which colour 

 appears the slight crimson sincipital tuft of the male : back striped as 

 in the last : beneath whitish, purest on the throat; the rest pale earthy- 

 brownish or albescent, marked with central dusky-brown lines ; a 

 brown streak from the eye along the sides of the neck, darkest 

 posteriorly, and between this and the black of the head and neck, 

 there is a long wide white band, from the summit of the eye, 

 spreading laterally on tlie back of the neck, and almost meeting 

 its fellow, and also joining tlic wliitc of the sides of the breast ; 

 tail, with the central feathers pure brown-black, the two outer ones 



