BEACHYPTERXUS. 59 



sides of head, above and below the eye, and sides of neck white, 

 often tinged yellowish ; hind neck, upper back, rump, and upper 

 tail-covi'Hs velvety black; scapulars and interscapulary region 

 golden yellow, sometimes tinged with orange-red ; most of the 

 greater wing-coverts and some of the inner median coverts with 

 the outer webs of the secondary quills golden olive, the other 

 coverts black, nearly all coverts except along the forearm with a 

 subterminal yellowish or olivaceous white spot, varying much in 

 size; both webs of primaries and inner webs of secondaries 

 brownish black, with large white spots; tail-feathers entirely 

 black ; malar region, chin, throat, and fore neck black, with nume- 

 rous short white stripes or spots, this pattern passing gradually 

 into that of the breast, where the feathers are buffy white with 

 broad black borders, that become narrower on the abdomen ; 

 flanks and under tail-coverts white with broad black bars, or black 

 with large white spots (fig. 8, p. 14). 



Female. Forehead and crown black, each feather with a terminal 

 spot]; a crimson occipital crest as in the male. Nestling birds are 

 sooty black and sullied white below, and the females want the 

 white spots on the head. 



Bill slaty black ; irides red-brown ; orbital skin dusky green ; 

 feet dark green ; claws dusky (Jerdon). 



Length 11/5 ; tail 3*75 ; wing 5*5 ; tarsus *95 ; bill from gape 1*5. 



Distribution. Throughout India and Ceylon, ranging throughout 

 Sind and the Punjab, ascending the lower Western Himalayas to 

 about 3000 feet, and extending on the eastward to Eastern Bengal 

 and Cachar, but not to Assam. 



The pale form from Sind, distinguished by Blyth as B. dilutus, 

 is a well-marked geographical race, paler yellow on the back, all 

 the interscapulary feathers with white shaft-stripes and dusky tips, 

 with white spots along the shafts of the scapulars, and large 

 white spots on the wing-coverts. 



The dark Ceylon and Malabar and S. Indian form called 

 B. micropus by Blyth and B.puncticollis by Malherbe, and wrongly 

 identified with Picus chrysonotus of Lesson by several naturalists, 

 has much smaller and more rounded white spots on the throat and 

 fore neck, together with frequently a white bar near the base of 

 each feather in those parts. Occasionally the fore neck (not the 

 throat) is unspotted black. The black and white band through 

 the eye is connected by a black stripe with the nape. The black 

 edges of the breast-feathers are wider. But both in this case and 

 in that of B. dilutus not only are intermediate forms between them 

 and B. aurantius common, but there are in the Hume Collection 

 characteristic skins of B. dilutus from Bengal and of B. puncti- 

 collis from Lucknow. 



B. intermedius has a red back, and is probably a hybrid between 

 the present "Woodpecker and B. eryihronotus ; and B. puncticollis 

 itself, especially the very dark Ceylon birds, may result from an 

 occasional cross with the red-backed species. 



Habits, fyc. By far the commonest and most familiar of Indian 

 Woodpeckers, this is often seen about villages where there are 



