38 
BIEDS OF BRITISH BURMAH. 
the whole upper plumage, wings and tail black spotted with white; chin, 
throat, and a line down the fore neck white ; sides of the neck brown ; a 
line under the ear-coverts white; lower plumage dull white broadly 
streaked with brown ; centre of the abdomen crimson ; under wing-coverts 
white mottled with black. 
The female differs in the absence of the crimson on the posterior part 
of the crown, this portion being straw-yellow like the remainder of the 
crown. 
Bill clear plumbeous, darker on the culmen and tip of both mandibles ; 
mouth bluish flesh-colour ; eyelids dark brown ; iris red ; legs plumbeous ; 
claws horny blue. 
Length 7*5 inches, tail 2*7, wing 4, tarsus '7, bill from gape 1*1. The 
female is of the same size. 
This species cannot be confounded with any other Burmese Pied Wood- 
pecker, the straw-yellow head and the crimson abdomen being sufficient to 
distinguish it. 
The Yellow-fronted Pied Woodpecker appears to be confined to the 
northern portion of Pegu. I found it very abundant at Thayetmyo along 
the banks of the Irrawaddy for some distance down the river, and Capt. 
Wardlaw Ramsay procured it at Tonghoo. 
It probably inhabits the Indo-Burmese countries ; and it is distributed 
over the whole peninsula of India to Scinde on the west and to Ceylon on 
the south. 
This Pied Woodpecker is more of a forest bird than the others, but it is 
occasionally met with in compounds and brushwood. In India it appears 
to breed from February to April. The eggs have not yet been taken in 
Burmah. 
A vast number of Pied Woodpeckers inhabit Asia, and it is impossible 
even to enumerate them in this work. None of them, however, are likely 
to visit Burmah, except perhaps a species which inhabits the Malay penin- 
sula, and to which Mr. Hume refers (S. F. viii. p. 153) under the name 
of lyngipicus variegatus. It is allied to P. canicapillus, but has no grey 
whatever on the crown, which, with the ground-colour of the whole of the 
upper plumage, is smoky brown. It was procured by Mr. Davison at 
Klang, and is not unlikely to creep up into Tenasserim. 
