CHRYSOCOLAPTES STRICKLANDI. 
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ancl lower parts white ; a mesial black line from the chin to the fore neck, and two down each cheek ; fore neck 
and chest-feathers very broadly edged with blackish brown, gradually narrowing towards the lower parts, where 
it almost disappears ; under tail-coverts white, crossed by angular dark bars ; under wing-coverts barred white. 
The spots on the first primary vary ; two is the normal number. 
Female,. Has the top of the head and the nape black, with round white spots : lores, sides of the neck, and ear-coverts 
blacker than the male and concolorous with the head ; the longer under tail-coverts blackish brown. 
Young. The nestling bird has the distribution of the markings the same as in the adult, but they are, together with 
the ground-colour, less pronounced. A young female before me has the head dull blackish, the spots on crown and 
forehead sullied white, while those of the crest are pure white. The white markings and spottings on the throat 
are likewise sullied white, the dark edgings are brownish black. 
Birds of the year have the bill browner at the base than adults and shorter, measuring, on the average, about 1-85 inch 
to gape ; the iris has a faint tinge of reddish, with a brownish-red outer circle. In some examples the primaries 
are tipped and crossed with white. Mr. Holdsworth alludes to an example which had the lower part o£ the bac v 
black, faintly barred with white, with crimson feathers appearing among the others. 
Ohs. Many individuals of this Woodpecker are met with in the low country of Ceylon with the feathers remarkably 
faded, those which are thus affected being chiefly the primaries at the tips, the coverts at the point of the wing 
and above the metacarpal joint, as well as on the hind neck ; these I have found to be a dun-brown in some, and 
others a whity brown or greyish colour. The specimens were fully adult ; and this singular feature could only 
have been the result of the action of the sun’s rays on the plumage, the birds having frequented exposed situations. 
This species is the Ceylonese representative of the South-Indian Oh. delesserti ; but the latter bird has the back, 
scapulars, and wing-coverts golden red, and the bill is not so pale. Though first described as a new species by 
Layard in the ‘ Annals of Natural History,’ 1854, it w as previously known to Jerdon from specimens sent from 
Cevlon, and it was figured by him in his ‘ Illustrations of Indian Ornithology,’ to face his article on Brack, eeylonus. 
It is very closely allied to the Philippine-Islands species C. hcematribon, which differs from it in having the bill 
brownish, with the base of the under mandible pale. 
Distribution . — This Woodpecker, the finest of its tribe in Ceylon, is widely distributed. It has been 
assigned hitherto to the hills alone, its range not having evidently been worked out j and I am at a loss to 
understand in what manner its presence in so many parts of the low -country forests has been overlooked by 
ornithologists collecting in the island. It is found throughout the Central Province from the altitude of the 
Horton Plains and the Pedro range downwards, but it is, as far as I have been able to trace it out, more 
plentiful in the higher than in the intermediate forests on the Kandy side. In Uva, however, it is to be found 
in most forests, following its way down the wooded passes into the low country. It is spread throughout the 
Eastern Province and the forest-region lying between the Hapntale ranges and the south coast, and seems to 
thrive as well there as in the damp cool regions of the Nuwara-Eiliya plateau. I have procured it within a 
few miles of Kirinde, on the banks of the river there. It is found through all the forest-tract to the north of 
Dambulla, and inhabits the open woods close to the coast near Trincomalie. Within a few miles of that place 
I have shot it in an overgrown cocoanut-compound, together with Brachyptemus eeylonus and B. puncticollis ! 
In the Vanni it is common, and extends through the Anaradjapura district and the Seven Ivorales to Kuiunegala 
and Puttalam, its numbers decreasing as it approaches the damp climate of the Western Province. South of 
the Deduru-oya it is much rarer. I have met with it in forest near Ambepussa, between Avisawella and 
Ratnapura, in the Pasdun Korale, and once near Baddegama in the Galle district, the precise locality there 
being the Government forest reserve of Kottowe. 
I believe its numbers to have much diminished in the coffee-districts by the felling of the forest ; but, 
notwithstanding, it seems to be local in its tastes. During several days’ wanderings in the Peak forests, a 
most likely locality for it, I seldom heard its well-known trill, and again in the Knuckles forests I remember 
to have found it rare. 
Layard procured the specimen from which he took his original description at Gillymally near Ratnapura, 
and mentions Mr. Thwaites getting a large number near Kandy, in which district it was evidently more 
common then than it is now. Mr. Holdsworth found it “ abundant at Nuwara Elliya and in all tree-jungle 
in that district.” 
