Auk 
80 BREWSTER, Womenclature of the Downy Woodpeckers. jan 
ON THE NOMENCLATURE OF CERTAIN FORMS OF 
THE DOWNY WOODPECKER (DR YOBATES 
PUBESCENS). 
BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 
In accordance with a wish expressed by the Committee on 
Classification and Nomenclature at its meeting in Cambridge 
on November 13, 1896, I have investigated certain matters of 
synonymy suggested by a recent article on the Downy Wood- 
pecker by Mr. Oberholser,! who proposes to separate this bird into 
three geographical races of which Dryobates pubescens meridional, 
a small, brownish-breasted form inhabits the *‘ South Atlantic and 
Gulf States, from South Carolina to Texas” and Dryobates pubes- 
cens nelsoni, a large: and relatively white form, “Alaska and 
Northern British America”; the bird intermediate in respect to 
size and coloring and occupying the region lying between the areas 
just mentioned being considered as representing Dryobates jubes- 
cens VerUus. 
A similar division was made by Swainson in 1831, in the 
‘Fanua Boreali-Americana’ (Part Second, p. 308), but Swainson 
applied the name /zdescens to the Downy Woodpecker of British 
North America and renamed as a distinct species the bird which 
‘‘inhabits the middle parts of North America,” and that found in 
‘“‘ Georgia ”’ calling the former “Pucus (Dendrocopus) medianus, the 
Little Midland Woodpecker” (type locality New Jersey), and the 
latter “ Picus (Dendrocopus) meridionalis, the Little Georgian 
Woodpecker ” (type locality Georgia). Mr. Oberholser of course 
credits the name mervidionalis to Swainson, with an appropriate 
reference to the ‘ Fauna Boreali-Americana’, but he makes no 
allusion to Swainson’s treatment of the other two forms, nor does 
he give his reasons for restricting the name pubescens to the mid- 
land bird. In the synonymy of Dryobates pubescens meridionats, 
however, he cites ‘“ Picus pubescens, Linneeus, Syst. Nat., Ed. 12, 
1766, I, 175 (fart)”, the insertion of the final word in parenthe- 
sis indicating that he regards this name as only in part applicable 
to the southern race. 
1 Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. XVIII, No. 1080, pp. 547-550. 
