CHRYSOCOLAPTES STRICKLANDI. 189 



and lower parts white ; a mesial black line from the chin to the fore neck, and two down each cheek ; fore neck 

 and chest-feathers very broadly edged with blackish brown, gradually narrowing towards the lower parts, where 

 it almost disappears ; under tail-coverts white, crossed by angular dark bars ; under wing-coverts barred white. 

 The spots on the first primary vary ; two is the normal number. 



Female. Has the top of the head and the nape black, with round white spots : lores, sides of the neck, and ear-coverts 

 blacker than the male and concolorous with the head ; the longer under tail-coverts blackish brown. 



Young. The nestling bird has the distribution of the markings the same as in the adult, but they are, together with 

 the ground-colour, less pronounced. A young female before me has the head dull blackish, the spots on crown and 

 forehead sullied white, while those of the crest are pure white. The white markings and spottings on the throat 

 are likewise sullied white, the dark edgings are brownish black. 



Birds of the year have the bill browner at the base than adults and shorter, measuring, on the average, about 1-85 inch 

 to gape ; the iris has a faint tinge of reddish, with a brownish-red outer circle. In some examples the primaries 

 are tipped and crossed with white. Mr. Holdsworth alludes to an example which had the lower part of the back 

 black, faintly barred -with white, with crimson feathers appearing among the others. 



Obs. Many individuals of this Woodpecker are met with in the low country of Ceylon with the feathers remarkably 

 faded, those which are thus affected being chiefly the primaries at the tips, the coverts at the point of the wing 

 and above the metacarpal joint, as well as on the hind neck ; these I have found to be a dun-brown in some, and 

 others a whity brown or greyish colour. The specimens were fully adult ; and this singular feature could only 

 have been the result of the action of the sun's rays on the plumage, the birds having frequented exposed situations. 



This species is the Ceylonese representative of the South-Indian Gh. delesserti ; but the latter bird has the back, 

 scapulars, and wing-coverts golden red, and the bill is not so pale. Though first described as a new species by 

 Layard in the ' Annals of Natural History,' 1854, it was previously known to Jerdon from specimens sent from 

 Ceylon, and it was figured by him in his ' Illustrations of Indian Ornithology,' to face his article on Brach. ceylonus. 

 It is very closely allied to the Philippine-Islands species C. hcematribon, which differs from it in having the bill 

 brownish, with the base of the under mandible pale. 



Distribution. — This Woodpecker, the finest of its tribe in Ceylon, is widely distributed. It has been 

 assigned hitherto to the hills alone, its range not having evidently been worked out ; and I am at a loss to 

 understand in what manner its presence in so many parts of the low-country forests has been overlooked by 

 ornithologists collecting in the island. It is found throughout the Central Province from the altitude of the 

 Horton Plains and the Pedro range downwards, but it is, as far as I have been able to trace it out, more 

 plentiful in the higher than in the intermediate forests on the Kandy side. In Uva, however, it is to be found 

 in most forests, following its way down the wooded passes into the low country. It is spread throughout the 

 Eastern Province and the forest-region lying between the Haputale ranges and the south coast, and seems to 

 thrive as well there as in the damp cool regions of the Nuwara-Elliya plateau. I have procured it within a 

 few miles of Kirinde, on the banks of the river there. It is found through all the forest-tract to the north of 

 Dambulla, and inhabits the open woods close to the coast near Trincomalie. Within a few miles of that place 

 I have shot it in an overgrown cocoanut- compound, together with Brachypternus ceylonus and B. pwicticollis ! 

 In the Vanni it is common, and extends through the Anaradjapura district and the Seven Korales to Kurunegala 

 and Puttalam, its numbers decreasing as it approaches the damp climate of the Western Province. South of 

 the Deduru-oya it is much rarer. I have met with it in forest near Ambepussa, between Avisawella and 

 Ratnapura, in the Pasdun Korale, and once near Baddegama in the Galle district, the precise locality there 

 being the Government forest reserve of Kottowe. 



I believe its numbers to have much diminished in the coffee-districts by the felling of the forest ; but, 

 notwithstanding, it seems to be local in its tastes. During several days' wanderings in the Peak forests, a 

 most likely locality for it, I seldom heard its well-known trill, and again in the Knuckles forests I remember 

 to have found it rare. 



Layard procured the specimen from which he took his original description at Gillymally near Ratnapura, 

 and mentions Mr. Thwaites getting a large number near Kandy, in which district it was evidently more 

 common then than it is now. Mr. Holdsworth found it " abundant at Nuwara Elliya and in all tree-jungle 

 in that district." 



