Genus YUNGIPICUS. 
Of small size. 
Bill much as in Pious, short, widened at the base and conic; gonys quickly ascending. 
Wings longer than in Pious, the secondaries long in proportion to the primaries ; tail much as in 
that genus, the outer feathers not so rigid ; tarsi and feet the same, with the versatile toe longer 
than the anterior. 
YUNGIPICUS GYHNOPHTHALHOS. 
(THE PIGMY WOODPECKER.) 
Pious gymnoptlialmos, Bl. J. A. S. B. 1849, xviii. p. 804 ; id. Cat. Mus. A. S. B. p. 64 (1849). 
Yungipicus gymnopthalmus , Bonap. Consp. Yol. Zygod. p. 8 (1854). 
Pious otarius, Malh. Mon. Picidse, i. p. 152, pi. 35 (1863). 
Yungipicus gymnoptlialmos, Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 128 (1852) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. 
Nat. Hist. 1854, xiii. p. 448. 
Yungipicus gymnophthalmos, Jerdon, B. of Ind. i. p. 279 (1862) ; Holdsworth, P. Z. S. 1872, 
p. 427 ; Jerdon, Ibis, 1872, p. 8; Hume, Str. Feath. 1873, p. 433; Legge, Ibis, 1874, 
p. 15; id. Str. Feath. 1875, p. 365 ; Bourdillon, ibid. 1876, p. 389. 
Bceopipo gymnophlhalma, Cab. et Heine, Mus. Hein. v. p. 59 (1863). 
Little Black-and-white Woodpecker, Europeans in Ceylon. 
Mal-kceralla, Sinhalese. 
Adult male and female. Length 4'7 to 4 - 9 inches ; wing 2"8 to 3 - 0 ; tail 1’3 ; outer anterior toe 0'4 to 0 - 45, claw 
(straight) 0'25 ; bill to gape (Hi to 0-7. 
Iris white, greyish white, yellowish white, or reddish white (varies much) ; bill brownish olivaceous, somewhat paler 
beneath ; eyelid and orbitar skin dull mauve or purplish ; legs and feet greenish plumbeous. 
Head above, centre of nape, and hind neck, back, wings, and tail very dark sepia-brown ; back broadly barred, and the 
■wing-coverts, quills, and tail spotted with white ; on the rump aud upper tail-coverts the white predominates, 
reducing the brown to bars ; 1st quill and outer web of second unspotted brown ; a broad white stripe passes 
from behind the eye to the nape ; below this the cheeks, ear-coverts, and sides of neck are brown as the back ; a 
narrow line of vermilion-red above the white stripe and partially concealed by the brown of the head ; throat 
and entire under surface murky white ; under tail-coverts striped and centered with brown ; under wing-coverts 
white, barred with brown. 
Female. "Wants the vermilion superciliary stripe ; otherwise as the male. 
In some specimens the flanks and sides of lower part of breast show obscure brownish strisc. 
Ohs. Mr. Hume remarks of this species that “ Ceylon specimens are absolutely identical with those from the Malabar 
coast.” A female shot by Mr. Bourdillon in the Travancore hills measured — length 4 - 87 inches ; wing 2 - 87 ; 
tail U25. This Woodpecker is very closely allied to the commoner Southern Indian race Y. hardwicki, which is, 
according to Jerdon, “ brownish or sooty brown above, banded with white on the back ; head pale rufescent or 
yellowish brown, scarcely deepening posteriorly.” The Ceylonese bird, it will be observed, differs from it in being 
darker on the head and back ; it is likewise smaller, the wing of Y. hardwicki averaging, according to Mr. Hume, 
3 inches ; he writes, loc. cit., that typical examples of Y. gymnophthalmos have the whole head and back darker ; 
but many specimens from Anjango, in the south of India, differ from some of Y. hardwicki from the north only in 
the much darker occiput and nape. 
Distribution. — This Pigmy Woodpecker is tolerably plentiful in some parts of Ceylon, and has a wide 
range, being diffused over nearly all the low country, except perhaps the extreme north of the Yanni and 
