BIRDS — PICIDAE — SPHTEAPICU8 VABIUS. 103 



SPHYRAPICUS VARIUS, Baird. 



Yellow-bellied Woodpecker. 



Picus varius, L. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 176. — Vieillot, Ois. Am. II, 1807, 63 ; pi. cxviii, cxix. — Wilson, Am. Orn. I, 

 1808, 147; pi. ix, f. 2.— Wacler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 16 — Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 519 : V. 537 ; 

 pi. 190.— Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 263 ; pi. 267.— Bon. List. 1838.— Ib. Consp. 1S50, 138. 



Picus (Dendrocopus) varius, Sw. F. B. A. II, 1831, 309. 



Pilumnus varius, Bon. Consp. Zygod. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8. 



?Picuj alrolhorax. Lesson. Traite d'Ornithologie, 1, 1831, 229.— Ib. Pocberan, Rev. Zool. VII, 1855, 21. (Refers it 

 to PicMS tJorius.) 



Yellow-hellied woodpecker, Pennant, Latham. 



Sp. Ch. — Fourth quill longest; third a little shurter ; fourth considerably shorter. General color above black, mucli 

 variegated with white. Feathers of the back and rump brownish white, spotted with black. Crown scarle', bordered by black on 

 the sides of the head and nape. A streak from above the eye, and another from the bristles of the bill, passing below the eye, 

 and into the yellowish of the belly, and a stripe along the edges of the wing coverts white. A triangular broad patch of scarlet 

 on the chin, bordered on each side by black stripes from the lower mandible, which meet behind, and extend into a large 

 quadrate spot on the breast. Rest of under parts yellowish white, streaked on the sides with black. Inner web of inner tail 

 feather white, spotted with black. Outer feathers black, edged and spotted with white. Length 8.25 inches ; wing about 4.75 ; 

 tail 3.30. Female with the red of the throat replaced by white. Young male without black on the breast, or red on top of 

 the head. 



Hab. — Atlantic ocean to the eastern slopes of Rocky mountains ; Greenland. 



Variety nuchalis. — The black occipital transverse band succeeded by a nuchal one of scarlet, instead of brownish white 

 (New Mexico.) 



The brownisli white stripes behind the eye are confluent on the nape, and are separated by a 

 black occipital band from the red of the top of head. It then may be traced downwards in two 

 branches over the scapular region, and meeting on the rump. The feathers involved are 

 whitish, with spots and transverse bands of black. The feathers of the middle of the back are 

 somewhat similar, but with more black. The white of the wing coverts is confined to the 

 outermost middle and greater ones. All the quills are spotted with white on the edges of both 

 webs, quite conspicuously so on the inner edges of innermost secondaries. The under tail 

 coverts are whitish, with concealed V-shaped bands of brown. The rump feathers are white, 

 the lateral ones with outer edges marked with black. The three outer tail feathers (not 

 counting the spurious one) are black, terminally edged and spotted with white ; the fourth has 

 a small white spot ; the fifth or innermost is as described. The white cheek stripe extends 

 along the whole neck, and runs into the yellow of the sides and belly. 



There is a very curious variety of this species, which I have only seen from the southern 

 Eocky mountains, in which the nuchal brownish white band formed by the confluence of the 

 two post ocular stripes is red, like the crown, and separated from it by the black occipital band. 

 The yellow bordering the black pectoral patch is also tinged with red. I have never seen more 

 than a trace of this in eastern specimens, as in 4632 and 2101. The name of nuchalis may be 

 applied to this variety. 



There is an occasional variation in the markings of the tail feathers. Thus in No. 782, from 

 Carlisle, the innermost one is entirely black, while in 4631, from the upper Missouri, the outer 

 web of the same feather has nearly, and in 2107, from Carlisle, it has quite, as much white as 

 the inner web. The outer webs do not appear to vary so much. 



With the great variations with age and sex exhibited by this species, it is a little remarkable 

 that it has so few synonyms. The Pictis atrothorax of Lesson, among these, was first shown to 

 belong to S. varius, by Pucheran, in his critical studies of the types of French zoologists 

 contained in the Paris Museum of Natural History. 



