438 THE NORTHERN PILEATED WOODPECKER. 
OVER and beyond the interest of life, which is always the greatest charm 
of an animal, be it bird or snail, a curious interest attaches to many creatures 
thru some accident of discovery, some misapprehension, or neglect, or absurd 
surprise,—the historical interest, humanly considered. Now the amusing 
thing about Williamson Sapsuckers, male and female, is that ages after God 
had joined them together man snatched them rudely asunder, thrusting Mr, 
Williamson into one pigeon-hole, labeled zwilliamsoni, and Mrs. Williamson— 
under a vernacular alias of Brown-headed Woodpecker—since she was indis- 
creet enough to flit out alone one day, into another, labeled Picus thyroideus. 
This legal crime, which was committed in the probate court of ornithological 
inexperience in 1853 and 1857, was not corrected until 1873, when Mr. Hen- 
shaw caught a pair of these really very dissimilar birds innocently conspiring 
to set the decree of a blundering divorce court at naught. 
Of the occurrence of this species in Washington, there is little to be said. 
There is a record for British Columbia, Similikameen, June, 1882, by R. V. 
Griffin, whence Bendire evidently assumes its presence along the eastern slope 
of the Cascade Mountains in Washington. I am aware of only one published 
instance*, recording a female narrowly observed by myself at the Yakima 
Soda Springs, on August 9, 1899. Besides that we have obtained momentary 
glimpses of others in the Stehekin Valley in three successive seasons, 1906- 
1908. 
Bendire notes that these Sapsuckers are like the other species in habit, 
except that they are not at all confined to deciduous trees, and that they are 
found (in Oregon, California, and Colorado) at the higher levels, from 5000 
feet up. So far, we have found them in Washington only at altitudes of 
1000 to 1500 feet. 
No. 175. 
NORTHERN PILEATED WOODPECKER. 
A. O. U. No. 405 a. Phloeotomus pileatus abieticola (Bangs). 
Synonyms.—Loccock. Cock-or-trHE-Woops. BLiack Woopcock. 
Description.—Adult male: General plumage sooty black, lusterless save on 
wings and back; whole top of head and lengthened crest bright red; red malar 
stripes changing to black behind, and separating white spaces; chin and upper 
throat white; also a white stripe extending from nostrils and below eye to nape, 
and produced downward and backward to shoulder ; narrow white stripe over and 
behind eye; lining and edge of wing, and a large spot (nearly concealed) at base 
of primaries, white; black feathers of sides sparingly white-tipped; bill dark 
plumbeous above, lighter below, save at tip; feet black. In some specimens the 
a. The Wilson Bulletin, No. 39, June, 1902, p. 63. 
