CHRYSOCOLAPTES FESTIVIIS. 



(THE BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKER.) 



Picus festivus, Bodd. Tabl. PI. Enl. 696 (1783). 



Pious goensis, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 434 (1788). 



Denclrocopus elliotti, Jerdon, Cat. B. S. India, Madr. Journ. 1840, xi. no. 208. 



Chrysocolaptes melanotis, Blyth, J. A. S. B. 1843, xii. p. 1005. 



Chrysocolaptes festivus, Gray, Gen. B. iii. App. p. 21 (18451); Blyth, Ibis, 1866, p. 355; 



Holdsworth, P. Z. S. 1872, p. 427 (first record from Ceylon); Jerdon, Ibis, 1872, p. 8; 



Adam, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 373; Ball, ibid. 1874, p. 391 ; Butler et Hume, ibid. 1875, 



p. 458; Legge, Ibis, 1875, p. 283. 

 Chrysocolaptes goensis, Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 55 (1849) ; Jerdon, B. of Ind. i. p. 282 



(1862); Reich. Handb. Spec. Orn. p. 400, pi. 655. fig. 4359. 

 Tndopicus goensis, Malh. Mon. Picidae, ii. p. 82, pi. 66. figs. 1, 2 (1863). 

 Marram tolashi, Tamils in India (Jerdon). 

 Kwralla, Sinhalese. 



Adult male. Length 11-5 to 12-6 inches ; wing 5 - 8 to 6 - 0, expanse 19-5 ; tail 3-0 to 3-6 ; tarsus 1-05 to 1-2 ; outer 

 anterior toe 0-9, claw (straight) 0-5 : outer posterior toe 1*0, claw (straight) 052 ; expanse of foot with claws 3-0 : 

 bill to gape 1-93, height at base 0"42. 



The above measurements are from two Ceylonese specimens. 



Iris (variable) in one example brownish, in the other crimson-orange ; bill dull blackish or leaden horn-colour, darker 

 at the tip ; legs and feet greenish slaty, claws bluish horn or brownish ochraceous. 



Head and crest bright but pale crimson, bordered by a broad blackish superciliary stripe, commencing at the nostrils 

 and encompassing the occiput ; forehead joining the supercilium brownish, bases of the head-feathers black ; a 

 broad stripe from the eye to the nape and thence spreading over the hind neck and interscapular region ; throat, 

 fore neck, lower part of face, and lower half of lores white ; back, rump, upper tail-coverts, scapulars, least wing- 

 coverts, and on each side of the white, passing up the side of the neck to the eye, brownish black ; tail black : 

 primaries and their coverts, inner webs of secondaries, and tertiaries blackish brown, with large round 

 marginal spots to the quills, and corresponding greyish markings on the outer webs ; throat with a dark mesial 

 stripe, and two more down each cheek as in the last ; beneath white, feathers of the throat and chest broadly 

 edged with blackish brown, which diminishes to a narrow margin on the lower parts ; under tail-coverts white 

 with dark centres, the lower feathers entirely brown. 



Female. Indian examples (I have not met with a Ceylonese specimen) have the crown and occipital crest light yellow, 

 of a more orange hue than the colour of the wing-coverts ; the forehead is spotted with white as in the last species; 

 the wing-coverts a duller yellow than in the male. Blyth remarks that some females have the yellow crest tipped 

 with crimson. 



Young. A young male, shot by Mr. Parker in the Puttalam district, has the crest-feathers yellow, tipped with orange- 

 red ; the superciliary feathers brown and black, and those of the forehead black, marked or spotted with white, 

 the latter colour predominating near the base of the bill. 



05s. Ceylonese examples appear to be altogether smaller and less robust than, and with the bills not so stout as in, 

 Indian specimens ; the black and white markings about the neck and throat are more open or bolder in the Indian 

 bird, and this is especially noticeable in the lateral stripes leading down from the chin, in the black patch on the 

 ear-coverts, and in the white stripe over the ears ; the forehead, in the continental males, is conspicuously white, 

 and the white centres of the chest-feathers more pronounced. A male in my collection, from Eaipoor, measures 



