530 



NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



Picoides arcticus, Gray. 



THE BLACK-BACKED THREE-TOED WOODPECKER. 



Picus (Apternus) arcticus, Sw. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 313. Apternus arcticus, Bp. List, 

 1838. —Ib. Consp. 1850, 139. — Newberry, Zool. Cal. and Oreg. Eoute, 91, Rep. 

 P. R. R. Surv. VI, 1857. Picus arcticus, AuD. Syn. 1839, 182. — Ib. Birds Amer. 

 VI, 1842, 266, pi. cclxviii. — NuTTALL, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 691. — Sundevall, 

 Consp. I, 1866, 15. Picus tridadylus, BoN. Am. Orn. II, 1828, 14, pi. xiv, f. 2. — 

 AuD. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 198, pi. cxxxii. Tridactylia arctica. Cab. & Hein. Picoides 

 arcticus, Gray, Gen. — Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 98. — Lord, Pr. R. Art. Inst. 

 Woolwich, IV, 1864, 112 (Cascade Mountains). — Cooper, Pr. Cal. Ac. Sc. 1868 (Lake 

 Tahoe and Sierra Nevada). — Samuels, 94. —Cooper, Orn. Cal. I, 1870, 384. 



Sp. Char. Above entirely uniform glossy bluish-black ; a square patch on the middle 



of the crown saffron-yellow, and a few 

 white spots on the outer edges of both 

 webs of the primary and secondary 

 quills. Beneath white, on the sides of 

 whole body, axillars, and inner wing- 

 coverts banded transversely with black. 

 Crissum Avhite, Avith a few spots an- 

 teriorly. A narrow concealed white 

 line fi'om the eye a short distance back- 

 wards, and a white stripe from the 

 extreme forehead (meeting anteriorly) 

 under the eye, and down the sides of 

 the neck, bordered below by a narrow 

 stripe of black. Bristly feathers of the 

 base of the bill brown ; sometimes a 

 few gray intermixed. Exposed portion 

 of two outer tail-feathers (first and 



second) white ; the third obliquely white at end, tipped with black. Sometimes these 



feathers with a narrow black tip. 



Hab. Northern North America ; south to northern borders of United States in winter. 



Massachusetts (Maynard, B. E. Mass., 1870, 129). Sierra Nevada, south to 39°. Lake 



Tahoe (Cooper) ; Carson City (Ridgway). 



This species differs from the other American three-toed Woodpeckers 

 chiefly in having the back entirely black. The white line from the eye is 

 usually almost imperceptible, if not wanting entirely. Specimens vary very 

 little ; one from Slave Lake has a longer bill than usual, and the top of 

 head more orange. The size of the vertex patch varies ; sometimes the 

 frontal whitish is inappreciable. None of the females before me have any 

 white spots in the black of head, as in that of americanus. 



The variations in this species are very slight, being chiefly in tlie shade of 

 the yellow patch on the crown, which varies from a sulphur tint to a rich 

 orange. Sometimes there is the faintest trace of a whitish post-ocular 

 streak, but usually this is wholly absent. Western and Eastern examples 

 appear to be identical. 



Picoides arrticiis. 



