GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 475 



sence in the young of an imperfect red-ancl-black belt across 

 the chest, which is lost in the adult. But the Pied Wood- 

 pecker found near Constantinople presents an intermediate 

 phase, and, what is just as important, examples obtained in 

 Germany, and presumably of German origin, occasionally 

 exhibit, says Dr. Altum, red markings on the breast, though 

 in other respects they differ not from the normal Dendrocopus 

 major. It is plain that a much longer series of specimens 

 must be brought together before we can reach any positive 

 conclusion as to the range of our species, the difficulty in 

 determining which will thus be seen to arise from the almost 

 insoluble problem, wdiat is and what is not to be considered 

 a local race*. The question also offers itself whether the 

 Mauritanian Pied Woodpecker, the Picus nnmidicus of 

 Malherbe, should not be classed in the same category, though 

 its longer bill and its permanent red-and-black pectoral 

 belt — the effects perhaps of protracted isolation — may afford 

 arguments for regarding it rather as a representative species. 

 It remains to be said of our Pied Woodpecker that it is found 

 in the Canary Islands (Ibis, 1872, p. 168), though in no other 

 of the Atlantic groups, and in the north of Europe reaches 

 the arctic circle. Its topographical distribution on the con- 

 tinent can no more be given than in England. 



The old male has the beak of a dark bluish horn-colour, 

 paler beneath : irides bright red : nasal coverts black ; fore- 

 head buff; lores, sides of the head, including the ear-coverts 

 and round the eyes, white ; top of the head glossy black, 

 occiput bright glossy scarlet ; a black mandibular stripe 

 extends backward below the ear-coverts on each side and 

 separates into three branches, the lowest passing downwards 

 to form a triangular patch on the side of the throat, the 

 highest ascending to the nape, behind the scarlet occiput, 

 where it meets its fellow from the other side, and the middle 

 branch running backward encloses, between it and the upper- 



* The same difficulty attends several of tbe North- American Woodpeckers, 

 not only of a closely-allied genus, but of the genus Colaptes (see page 276, 

 note); but it has been in a great measure overcome by the assiduity with which 

 the ornithologists of that country have collected, and the philosophical spirit in 

 which they have examined, long series of specimens from various localities. 



