BIRDS — PICIDAE — SPHYRAPICUS VARIUS. 
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SPHYRAPICUS VARIUS, Baird. 
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker. 
Picus varius, L. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 176.— Vieillot, Ois. Am. II, 1807, 63 ; pi. cxviii, cxix.— Wilson, Am. Orn. I, 
1808, 147; pi. ix, f. 2.— Wagler, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 16 — Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 519 : V. 537 ; 
pi. 190.— Ib. Birds Amer. IV, 1842, 263 ; pi. 267— Bon. List. 1838.— Ib. Consp. 1850, 1?8. 
Picus (Dendrocopus) varius, Sw. F. B. A. II, 1831, 309. 
Pilumnus varius, Bon. Consp. Zygod. Aten. Ital. 1854, 8. 
iPicus atrathorax, Lesson. Traite d'Ornithologie, 1, 1831, 229.— Ib. Ppcheran, Rev. Zool. VII, 1855, 21. (Refers it 
to Picus varius.) 
Yellow-bellied woodpecker, Pennant, Latham. 
Sp. Ch. — Fourth quill longest; third a little shorter; fourth considerably shorter. General color above black, much 
variegated with white. Feathers of the back and rump brownish white, spotted with black. Crown scarle', bordered by black on 
the sides of the head and nape. A streak from above the eye, and another from the bristles of the bill, passing below the eye, 
and into the yellowish of the belly, and a stripe along the edges of the wing coverts white. A triangular broad patch of scarlet 
on the chin, bordered on each side by black stripes from the lower mandible, which meet behind, and extend into a large 
quadrate spot on the breast. Rest of under parts yellowish whit^, streaked on the sides with black. Inner web of inner tail 
feather white, spotted with black. Outer feathers black, edged and spotted with white. Length 8.25 inches ; wing about 4.75 ; 
tail 3.30. Female with the red of the throat replaced by white. Young male without black on the breast, or red on top of 
the head. 
Hah. — Atlantic ocean to the eastern slopes of Rocky mountains ; Greenland. 
Variety nuchalis. — The black occipital transverse band succeeded by a nuchal one of scarlet, instead of brownish white 
(New Mexico.) 
The brownish white stripes behind the eye are confluent on the nape, and are separated by a 
black occipital band from the red of the top of head. It then may be traced downwards in two 
branches over the scapular region, and meeting on the rump. The feathers involved are 
whitish, with spots and transverse bands of black. The feathers of the middle of the back are 
somewhat similar, but with more black. The white of the wing coverts is confined to the 
outermost middle and greater ones. All the quills are spotted with white on the edges of both 
webs, quite conspicuously so on the inner edges of innermost secondaries. The under tail 
coverts are whitish, with concealed V-shaped bands of brown. The rump feathers are white, 
the lateral ones with outer edges marked with black. The three outer tail feathers (not 
counting the spurious one) are black, terminally edged and spotted with white ; the fourth has 
a small white spot ; the fifth or innermost is as described. The white cheek stripe extends 
along the whole neck, and runs into the yellow of the sides and belly. 
There is a very curious variety of this species, which I have only seen from the southern 
Eocky mountains, in which the nuchal brownish white band formed by the confluence of the 
two post ocular stripes is red, like the crown, and separated from it by the black occipital band. 
The yellow bordering the black pectoral patch is also tinged with red. I have never seen more 
than a trace of this in eastern specimens, as in 4632 and 2101. The name of nuchalis may be 
applied to this variety. 
There is an occasional variation in the markings of the tail feathers. Thus in No. 782, from 
Carlisle, the innermost one is entirely black, while in 4631, from the upper Missouri, the outer 
web of the same feather has nearly, and in 2107, from Carlisle, it has quite, as much white as 
the inner web. The outer webs do not appear to vary so much. 
With the great variations with age and sex exhibited by this species, it is a little remarkable 
that it has so few synonyms. The Picus atrothorax of Lesson, among these, was first shown to 
belong to S. varius, by Pucheran, in his critical studies of the types of French zoologists 
contained in the Paris Museum of Natural History. 
