as | BANGS, The American Three-toed Woodpeckers. 127 
land, etc.,a new name. In view of these facts, it seems well to 
publish this short review of the whole group. 
Picoides arcticus is a purely American type. /%coides americanus, 
on the other hand, is the American representative of the P. 
tridactylus group. 
Hargitt in the ‘ Catalogue of the Birds in the Collection of the 
British Museum’ (Vol. XVIII, 1890), recognizes, beside the very 
different /. funebris of ‘* Monpin, and the high wooded mountains 
of Western China,” but two Old World forms — P. ¢ridactylus, 
which he accords an immense range, over Europe and Asia, and 
P. tridactylus crissoleucus of central and northern Siberia and 
Kamtschatka. Other authors have, however, at various times 
considerably subdivided these two. 
Any of the forms of . americanus can always be distinguished 
from P. ¢ridactylus by the pattern of coloration of the 2d and 3d 
outer rectrices. In P. ¢ zdactylus these feathers are barred all the 
way across with black and white, the black bars being usually the 
wider, and the base of the feathers pure black. In P. americanus 
these feathers are pure white, somewhat marked or barred with 
black basally. PP. ¢ridactylus crissoleucus has the outer rectrices 
much less barred with black than in true P. ¢v7dactylus, and in 
this respect approaches P. americanus. It differs from P. amer- 
canus 1n being much whiter — the crown pure white in the female 
and the sides, etc., with scarcely any dusky markings. 
Both these Old World forms are larger than any of the P. 
americanus series, except P. americanus dorsalis, which sometimes 
nearly equals them in wing measurement. 
SYNONYMY. 
Picoides arcticus has escaped synonyms. It was described by 
Swainson, in 1831, as Picus (Apternus) arcticus (F. B. A., II, 
Birds, pp. xxvi and 313, pl. 57, 1831), from “a male killed near 
the sources of the Athabasca River, lat. 57°.” 
There are, however, two races—the typical one, extending 
from the northern Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic; the other 
inhabiting the Cascades, and Sierra Nevada of California. 
Picoides americanus has a complicated synonymy. In most 
recent works one finds the name /icordes americanus dating from 
