Genus MICROPTEENUS. 
Bill short, wide at the base ; culmen much arched or curved, lateral ridge almost obsolete 
uid close to the culmen; gonys straight, its angle sharp. Wings much as in other genera of the 
family, but with the secondaries long. Tail rather short, broad at the base. Tarsus about equal 
to the anterior toe, which is longer than the versatile one ; claws much curved. 
Of chestnut plumage. 
MICROPTEKNUS GITLARIS. 
(THE MADRAS RUFOUS WOODPECKER.) 
Picus badius , Jerdon, Cat. B. S. India, Madr. Journ. 1840, xi. no. 214. 
Microptemus gularis , Jerdon, 2nd Suppl. Cat. B. S. India, Madr. Journ. 1845, xiii. p. 139 ; 
Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 61 (1849); Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 128 (1852); 
Jerdon, B. of Ind. i. p. 294 ; Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 428 ; Hume, Str. Feath. 1873, 
p. 434 ; Legge, ibid. 1875, p. 201 ; Hume, ibid. 1877, p. 477. 
Microptemus phaioceps, Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1854, xiii. p. 450. 
Phciiopicus jerdoni, Malherbe, Kev. Zool. 1849, p. 535 ; id. Mon. Picid. pi. 47. figs. 1-4 (1862). 
The Pay Woodpecker of some ; Brown Woodpecker , Europeans in Ceylon. 
Kceralla , Sinhalese. 
A'hdi male. Length about 9-5 inches ; wing 4-5 to 4'7 ; tail 2' 75 ; tarsus 075 ; outer anterior toe 075 to 08, its claw 
(straight) 04 to 0'42 ; outer posterior toe 065 to 07 ; bill to gape ITS to 1-3. The bill, considering its small 
size, is somewhat variable in length. 
Iris chestnut-brown in some, brownish red in others ; bill black, with a slate-coloured or sometimes a greenish line at 
the sides of the lower mandible ; legs and feet “ slaty ” or blackish plumbeous. 
General plumage rufous-bay, with a dusky hue on the under surface ; head, region round the eye, and cheeks infuseated 
with brownish ; the feathers extending from the gape beneath the eye to the ear-coverts tipped with crimson, and 
occasionally those in front of the eye faintly pointed with the same ; the feathers of the lower part of the hind 
neck and all the upper surface beneath that part crossed with bars of brownish black, narrowest on the back and 
broadest on the inner webs of the quills and tertials ; tail with the central feathers deeply tipped with blackish, 
and the remaining bars five m number ; the three lateral feathers with the subterminal bar' the same width as the 
rest : chin- and throat-feathers crossed with blackish-brown subterminal bars and tipped with whitish ; flank, sides 
0 3(3 y* auc Unc ^ er tail-coverfcs barred with a lighter brown than the back; first three primaries with a brown 
patch on the inner webs ; under wing-coverts crossed with narrow bars of brownish black. 
1 hough the extent of the crimson tipping on the cheeks varies, I have not yet seen a Ceylonese specimen with it above 
the anterior angle of the eye, as is the case with the closely allied M. badiosus. 
Female. Slightly smaller; wing 4-5 inches ; bill to gape 1-1 to 1-25. 
Die rufous plumage paler throughout than in the male, at least in most specimens that I have examined; cheeks 
wanting the crimson colour. 
1 oung. In what appears to be an immature male bird, the feathers of the head are edged with rufous-bay, and the 
crimson cheek-patch is very small in extent ; the chest and breast have the feathers crossed with crescentic bands 
ot brown. 
This species is said lo vary in size from different parts of South India : I find no appreciable difference between 
western, southern, and northern specimens in Ceylon ; they average, as is the case with most Indo-Ceylonese 
forms, smaller than the continental birds. Mr. Hume, in his exhaustive notice of the genus (‘ Stray Feathers,’ 
