APPENDIX. 347 



Tlie female has the head, and whole upper parts, of a light 

 ash, or cinereous color, varied with blackish ; large patches of 

 yellowish-white upon the wing-coverts ; throat and breast varied 

 with black, and white ; belly white ; all the lateral tail-feathers 

 tipped with white on their inner webs. 



This very pretty and distinct species inhabits a portion of the 

 Platte country, east of the first range of the Rocky Mountains. It 

 appears to be strictly gregarious. Feeds upon the ground, along 

 which it runs swiftly, like the grass finch (F. graminea,) to 

 which it is somewhat allied. As the large flocks, (consisting 

 often of from sixty to a hundred,) were started from the ground 

 by our caravan in passing, the piebald appearance of the males 

 and females promiscuously intermingled, presented a curious, but 

 by no means unpleasing effect. While the flock is engaged in 

 feeding, the males are frequently observed to rise suddenly to a 

 considerable height, and poising themselves over their com- 

 panions, with their wings in constant and rapid motion, they be- 

 come nearly stationary. In this situation, they pour forth a 

 number of very lively and sweetly modulated notes, and at the 

 expiration of about a minute, descend to the ground, and course 

 about as before. I never observed this bird west of the Black Hills. 



Harris's Woodpecker. 

 Picus *Harrisi, (Audubon,) Birds of America, Vol. IV., pi. 

 417. Male and female. 



Bill bluish-black ; feathers covering the nostrils cinereous- 

 brown ; upper part of the head, and an oblong spot below the eye, 

 back ; a stripe of white commences in front of the eye above, 

 and extends back to the nape, where it is joined by a similar 

 stripe, which begins at the lower mandible ; the semicircle form- 

 ed by this white line, encloses the black spot on the auriculars ; 

 another black line commences at the base of the lower mandible, 

 bounding the white, and is continued down upon the shoulder, 

 where it is somewhat expanded anteriorly; a broad occipital band, 

 red ; upper parts black, the wings strongly glossed with blue ; 

 the primaries, secondaries, and a few of the tertails, with nume- 

 rous spots of white ; a stripe down the middle of the back, white; 

 tail long, cuneiform, black, the three exterior feathers brownish- 

 wliite ; the whole of the lower plumage is of a deep sooty-brown. 



