160 
SHORT-BILLED WOODPECKER. 
Dendromus brachyrynchus, Swains. 
Above olive-green ; beneath banded with black and wince , 
front and crown crimson. 
It is fortunate that the unusual shortness of the bill 
enables us to impose a name upon this apparently 
new bird, which at once expresses its peculiar cha- 
racter : this is the more desirable, since it has such 
a close resemblance to a bird of another group (the 
Picus afflnis of the Zoological Illustrations, now 
the Dendrobates a finis'), that it might readily pass, 
upon a cursory examination, for that species ; both 
are olive above and banded beneath ; both are 
small, and both have red crowns. The bills, how- 
ever, are totally different, not only in size, but in 
that structure which separates the two subgenera of 
DendrolcUes and Dendromus. It would almost 
seem, in fact, that the passage from one to the 
other was actually made by these two birds. 
Upper bill very short, not exceeding six-tenths 
of an inch from the front ; the lateral ridge near, 
but not close to the culmen : the gonys, or middle 
ridge of the under mandible, measures only three- 
tenths of an inch : the upper part of the head from 
