106 Description of three new species of Woodpecker. [Feb. 



black : wings internally, and the primaries wholly, blackish, with 

 3, 4, or 5 ovoid white spots, ranged barwise across the inner webs of 

 all the feathers : — Female, the same ; save that her cap is black, with a 

 white drop on each plume: bill and legs slaty, with a greenish or yel- 

 lowish smear : nails dusky : iris, carmine in the male, orange-red in 

 the female : orbitar skin, green in both : 1 5 inches long by 23 wide, 

 and 8 to 9 oz, in weight. 



N. B. The young at first resemble the female, and the males do not 

 assume their perfect plumage till the second or third year. Black is 

 the prevalent under-color of the species, and may be seen, unmixed, 

 beneath the carmine crest of the males, and mixed with white, dis- 

 posed barwise, beneath the carmine of their lower backs. This spe- 

 cies breeds once a year, in May. It moults also but once, between 

 June and October, both inclusive. There is another Nipalese species 

 scarcely distinguishable from this by colors, and which has been 

 confounded with it by those who venture to describe from one or two 

 dried specimens. The two species differ, howevei*, toto coelo in all 

 typical and characteristic respects. 



Sub-genus Dryotomus. Species new : Flavigula, yellow throat, 

 nobis. 



Form. Bill 1|- inch, a fourth longer than the head ; at base as 

 broad as high, and soft in the lower mandible ; the ridges scarcely 

 straight or acute ; and the tips very imperfectly wedged : great 

 lateral angles of the maxilla, short and raised to the level of the cul- 

 men, giving the latter towards the base of the bill a character of 

 flatness and breadth observable in no other sub-genus : nares shaped 

 as in the preceding, but unprotected above by a corneous ledge, and 

 usually quite hid by the nuchal tuft : orbits, nude : head, less broad 

 and not crested : neck fuller, shorter, and, with the nape, crested 

 posteally : tarsus rather longer than the anteal outer toe, which is 

 distinctly larger than the posteal one : the grasp almost direct ; and 

 the two posterior toes wholly incapable of being brought to the front, 

 or even of acting laterally : talons powerful as in the last and similarly 

 angulated beneath : wings and tail with the general characters of the 

 last ; only rather more elongated and the latter feebler : 5th quill 

 longest: 1st, 3^, and 2nd, 1^ inches less the 5th : primaries plus ter- 

 tiaries 1^ to 1^ inch : tail much pointed and conspicuously wedged. 



Color. Above brilliant parrot-green, duller on the top of the head, 

 and merged in brown on the forehead : back of the neck, glossy 

 silken yellow : chin and throat, pale greenish yellow : neck, to the 

 front and sides, black green, picked out with pure white, which co- 



