264 NORTHERN TIIREE-TOED WOODPECKER. 



in this place very fine, and somewhat rigid ; they are black at their base, 

 and marked with white at the limits of the two colors ; the base of the 

 plumage elsewhere is uniformly plumbeous ash : each side from the 

 corner of the mouth, arises a broad white line, forming a white space 

 before the eye, prolonged on the neck ; beneath this there is a black 

 one which passing from the base of the lower mandible, joins the mass 

 oi' black of the body ; a tuft of setaceous white feathers advances far 

 upon the bill beneath ; the throat, breast, middle of the belly, and tips 

 of the under tail-coverts are pure white ; the sides of the breast, flankt* 

 broadly, and base of the tail-coverts, and even of some of the belly 

 feathers, are thickly waved with lines of black and white, as well as the 

 femoral and short tarsal feathers : in very old birds, as the one rep- 

 resented in the plate, these parts are considerably less undulated, being 

 of a much purer white ; the wings are five inches long, reaching two- 

 thirds the length of the tail ; the spurious feathers is exceedingly short, 

 :he first primary hardly longer than the seventh ; and the four following 

 subequal and longest ; the smaller wing-coverts, as mentioned, glossy 

 black : all the other upper coverts, as well as the quills, are of a dull 

 black, the primaries being somewhat duller ; these are regularly marked 

 on both webs with square white spots, larger on the inner webs, and as 

 they approach the base ; the secondaries are merely spotted on the 

 inner vane, the spots taking the appearance of bands ; the tips of all 

 the quills are unspotted, the lower wing-coverts are waved with black 

 and white, similar to the flanks ; the tail is four inches long, of the 

 shape usual in the Woodpeckers, and composed of twelve feathers of 

 which the four middle, longest, and very robust and acute, are plain 

 deep black, the next on each side is also very acute, and black at base, 

 cream white at the point, obliquely and irregularly tipped with black ; 

 the two next to these are cream white to the tip, banded with black on 

 the inner vane at base, the more exterior being much purer white and 

 somewhat rounded ; the exterior of all is very short and rounded, and 

 'bended throughout with black and pure white: the tarsus is seven- 

 ■^ighths of an inch long, feathered in front for nearly half its length, 

 and, with the toes and nails, dark plumbeous ; the nails are much 

 curved, and acute, the hind one being the largest. 



The above is a minute description of our finest male specimen, with 

 which all those we have examined coincide more or less. By comparing, 

 aowever, this description with the detailed ones found in some works, 

 we must conclude that the species is subject to variations in size and 

 plumage, which according to the erroneous impression given by authors, 

 could not be satisfactorily accounted for by difference of sex, age, or 

 locality : thus, in some specimens the cervix is described white, or partly 

 whitisli, instead of being wholly black : the back is also said to be waved 

 with white ; which is indeed the case, and with the cervix also, but only 



