FAMILY PICIDAE 541 



the chin and upper throat in some red or mixed with red ; rest of 

 under surface chestnut, marked heavily with V- or U-shaped bars 

 of black ; under wing coverts and axillars yellow to buff ; inner webs 

 of wing feathers cinnamon-rufous. 



Adult female, with no red on head ; otherwise like the male. 



Kennard (in Kennard and Peters, Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 

 vol. 38, 1928, p. 454) in a male taken at Almirante, March 2, 1926, 

 recorded colors as follows ; "iris garnet brown, base of bill sky blue, 

 tip sulphur yellow, sides picric yellow, culmen plain green yellow, 

 periophthalmic space dark gray-blue." 



Measurements. — Males (12 from Mexico, Honduras, Peten, Nica- 

 ragua, Costa Rica, and Bocas del Toro), wing 122.0-130.0 (126.6), 

 tail 77.6-87.0 (81.4), culmen from base 25.5-28.4 (26.5), tarsus 

 23.4-26.6 (24.5) mm. 



Females (11 from Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and 

 Bocas del Toro), wing 123.2-129.6 (125.4), tail 74.8-85.2 (78.9), 

 culmen from base 25.5-29.0 (26.9), tarsus 23.0-24.9 (24.0) mm. 



Resident. Fairly common in western Bocas del Toro from the 

 eastern shores of the Laguna de Chiriqui to the Costa Rican boundary ; 

 recorded inland to 360 meters on the trail to Boquete. 



This is a species of the dense rain forest where it may easily escape 

 detection because of its dark colors in the dim light filtered through 

 the leaf canopy in which it lives. In 1958, when I saw them around 

 the shores of Bahia Almirante, I located them usually by their per- 

 sistent pecking as they worked over the trees. I found them at times in 

 the mangrove swamps, but more often inland. Frequently they ranged 

 high above the ground. The call was a low kwar, in sound like a simi- 

 lar note of Wagler's woodpecker. 



In preparing specimens I noted the large size of the functional 

 tufted oil gland in which the ovoid lobes each measured 12 millimeters 

 long by 7 wide at the broadest point. The salivary glands also were 

 large, extending the full length of the mandibular rami. As I skinned 

 the heads the mucous secretion adhered like a gum to my fingers. 



When these woodpeckers come into cacao plantations there is some 

 complaint of their damage to the fruit. 



The species, here at its southern limit, ranges north to Veracruz 

 in Mexico. In the original description Wagler listed no type locality. 

 Cory (Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Zool. Ser., vol. 13, 1919, p. 453) sug- 

 gested "Vera Cruz, Mexico as an appropriate type locality." Later, 

 however, van Rossem (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 77, 1934, p. 412), 

 who examined the male and female of Wagler's original material in 



