GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 83 



side of the neck is a white patch; nape, black; chin, throat, 

 and breast, dingy or buff white; back, black. 



The wings expand to the width of one foot, and have the 

 irst feather very short; the second shorter than the seventh, 

 >ut longer than the eighth; the third, fourth, and fifth the 

 jame length as the seventh, the sixth the longest. The outer 

 greater wing coverts black, the inner white; lesser wing 

 coverts, black; primaries, black, with from two to five white 

 >atches on the outer web of each feather, and rounder ones 

 m the inner; secondaries, black; tertiaries, black. The tail 

 las the two middle feathers black, pointed, and longer than 

 ;he rest; the two next black, tipped with white; the next 

 )lack and white, the white barred with black; the middle 

 eathers are three inches and three quarters in length, while 

 ;he outer ones are only an inch and a quarter; upper tail 

 coverts, black; under tail coverts, red; legs and toes, blackish 

 y, the former feathered part of the way down in front; 

 claws, much hooked and black. 



The female is without the red on the head. These birds 

 moult as late as the beginning of November. 



Young; at first the whole head is scarlet, till the first 

 moult, when the females lose that colour entirely, and the 

 males retain it only on the back of the head. The young 

 of the year are a little less in size than the old birds; and 

 ill the colours are less bright. Forehead, white; head, on 

 ;he back, black, and in front, behind the forehead, scarlet; 

 crown, red, sometimes with a few black feathers interspersed. 

 I am much indebted to W. F. W. Bird, Esq., for a careful 

 resume' of the various authorities 'pro and con,' on the 

 subject of a supposed occurrence of another species of Wood- 

 pecker, the Middle Spotted; from which, on the whole, it 

 seems to be incontestably established that it is only the 

 young of the one before us; though, as Hunt remarks in 

 lis 'British Ornithology,' 'it is certainly a curious circumstance 

 ;hat the beautiful scarlet on the head of the young is next 

 to the white forehead, whilst in the old bird the scarlet is 

 it the back of the head, and the black next to the white 

 brehead;' and also that in the case of a nest of three young 

 birds and an old one, sent to him from the Rev. Mr. 

 Whitear, one of the young ones weighed more than its 

 )arent; but 'maternal solicitude' may have been the cause 

 3oth of the one and the other effect. 



