574 



NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



There are four well-marked representatives of the typical genus Colaptes 

 belonging to Middle and North America, three of them found within the 



Colaptes auratiis. 



limits of the United States, in addition to what has been called a hybrid 

 between two of them. The common and distinctive characters of these four 

 are as follows : — 



Species and Varieties. 



Common Characters. Head and neck ashy or brown, unvaried except by a 

 black or red malar patch in the male. Back and wings brown, banded trans- 

 versely with black ; rump and upper tail-coverta white. Beneath whitish, with 

 circular black spots, and bands on crissum ; a black pectoral crescent. Shafts and 

 under surfaces of quills and tail-feathers either yellow or red. 

 A. Mustache red ; throat ash ; no red nuchal crescent. 

 a. Under surface and shafts of wings and tail red. 



1. C. mexicanoides.* Hood bright cinnamon-rufous ; feathers of 

 mustache black below surface. Upper parts barred with black and 

 whitish-brown, the two colors of about equal width. Shafts, etc., dull 

 brick-red. Rump spotted with black ; black terminal zone of under 

 surface of tail narrow, badly defined. Wing, 6.15 ; tail, 4.90; bill, 1.77. 

 Hab. Southern Mexico and G-uatemala. 



2. C. mexicanus.^ Hood ashy-olivaceous, more rufescent anteriorly, 

 light cinnamon on lores and around eyes ; feathers of mustache light 

 ash below surface. Upper parts umber-brown, barred with black, the 

 black only about one fourth as wide as the brown. Shafts, etc., fine 

 salmon-red, or pinkish orange-red. Rump unspotted ; black terminal 



1 Colaptes mexicanoides, Lafr. Key. Zool. 1844, 42.— Scl. & Salv. Ibis, 1859, 137. — Sci,. 

 Catal. Am. B. 1862, 344. Colaptes ruhricatus. Gray, Gen. B. pi. cxi. Geopicus rub. Malh. 

 Monog. Pic. II, 265, pi. ex, figs. 1, 2. Picus submexicanus, Sund. Consp. Pic. 1866, 72. 



2 A series of hybrids between inexicanus and auratus is in the Smithsonian collection, these 

 specimens exhibiting every possible combination of the characters of the two. 



