On the Designation of the European Woodpeckers. 253 



XX. — On the proper Generic Designation of the European 

 Woodpeckers. By Henry T. Wharton, M.A., F.Z.S. 



At the present day the original Linnaean genus Picus con- 

 sists of at least two hundred and eighty species ; and for these 

 very nearly one hundred and fifty distinct generic names 

 have been proposed. Waiving the question of how far the 

 genus requires generic subdivision at all, it is obvious frora 

 this fact alone that in a redistribution of the group a consider- 

 able sifting of the results of what Dr. Hartlaub has so happily 

 called the " furor genericus " is of peremptory necessity. 



Linnaeus himself was acquainted with but twenty-one 

 species referable to his genus Picus ; of these, P. passerinus 

 has never been satisfactorily identified {cf Sundevall, Cousp. 

 Av. Picin. p. 34), P. aurantius is admitted to be the female 

 of P. beyigalensis, and P. semirostris is named from a muti- 

 lated specimen of P. viridis ; so that only eighteen well- 

 defined species were really known to him. 



The object of the present paper is to show the species 

 which, according to the Stricklandian code, should be legally 

 regarded as the type of the Linnsean genus Picus ; and in 

 this consideration it is only necessary to refer to the eight 

 well-marked European species. 



Now, in an inquiry of this kind no use whatever can be 

 made of the popular " argument from authority." The 

 family Picidse has been fortunate in obtaining three admi- 

 rable monographers. But of these, Malherbe (Monogr. des 

 Picidees, 1859-62) restricted the genus Picus to the Spotted 

 Woodpeckers ; Cabanis and Heine (Mus. Hein. iv. 2, p. 30, 

 note, 1863) would apparently confine it to the Green Wood- 

 peckers ; while Sundevall (/. c. 1866) used the name for all 

 the members of the family which were distinguished " rectri- 

 cibus firmioribus." And among those who have not parti- 

 cularly in a single work confined their attention to this 

 family alone, opinion has been equally diversified. For 

 instance, Swainson (Classif. Birds, ii. p. 306, 1841) took the 

 type of the genus to be P. robustus, a species undescribed by 

 Linnaeus ; George R. Gray regarded at one time (List of the 



