206 
BEACHYPTEENETS PUNCTICOLLIS. 
Pale oe tellow eacte. — Male. Markings the same ; the white wing-covert spots larger and continued more on the 
inner feathers ; the ear-coverts with less black ; the back and scapulars golden yellow ; onter webs of secondaries, 
tertials, and the secondary wing-coverts dusky golden. 
In one specimen from the Jaffna district, which presents an abnormal development of white in the spots of the 
primaries and those on the wing-coverts, the terminal spot on the feathers of the throat is connected with the 
basal bar by a mesial stripe, and this imparts the appearance of a specimen of Braehypterims aurantius. 
Female. Does not differ from the male in the yellow coloration, the head and forehead being, as in the other race, 
black with white spots. 
The older the bird in both sexes the greater the amount of white on the breast and chest, the white portions having 
evenly defined lateral edges and not indented with the marginal black as in birds not thoroughly mature. 
Young. A female in nest-plumage has the dark portions brownish black instead of jet-black ; the feathers of the 
forehead and crown with faint fulvous- white tips ; the spots on the throat and fore neck very small, the basal 
marking in the form of a spot and not of a bar ; the white central portions of the chest-feathers small and round 
in form, the black portions deeper than in the adult and extending to the tips as well as the margins. 
Obit. The light form of this species resident on the coast is evidently the bird referred to by Layard as B. aurantius, 
which is a North-Indian Woodpecker, and not found in Ceylon, although it must be remarked that specimens 
are rarely found among our Jaffna birds with an extraordinary development of the white on the throat-feathers, 
which nearly approach individuals of typical B. aurantius ; their isolation, however, precludes their being considered 
any thing but abnormally-marked examples of this truly puzzling species. The present species is, in fact, one 
of the most difficult birds to deal with in the whole of this work. Its extreme variability of coloration, apparently 
dependent on the effect of climate and situation, and its somewhat doubtful connexion with its relations of South 
India (Brack, puncticollis of Malherbe), together with a want of access on my part to a good series of Indian 
specimens carefully recorded from the forests and open low-lying districts analogous to the north coast of Cei'lon, 
make it almost impossible for me to come to a satisfactory conclusion in the matter. First, as to variability of 
coloration : Ceylonese specimens from the Jaffna peninsula and adjacent coast, as far south as Manaar, exhibit no 
variation in the pale golden hue of the back, which resembles that of B. aurantius; in the island of Eamisserum, 
however, which belongs to the mainland, we at once get a richer yellow-backed bird than the Jaffna and Manaar 
one, and some examples even have a faint tipping of crimson to the feathers of the back, whereas in some speci- 
mens from South India the whole coloration of the upper surface has a dull orange hue, a similar example to 
which I once shot near Trincomalie, forming a good link between the Jaffna and the forest bird. One such 
specimen from “ Malabar,” in the British Museum, has the wing 5-9 inches ; it is a female, and the largest 
specimen I have ever seen. 
Directly we enter the forests in Ceylon, we find the back and scapulars of an orange-yellow instead of a golden yellow, 
and the tips more or less “ touched ” with crimson, or the whole back of a uniform reddish-orange hue. Examples 
from Madras, and presumably from the forests, have much less of the crimson tippings than is exemplified in 
some from Ceylon, males from the former locality corresponding with females from the latter. Malherbe’s descrip- 
tion of these birds from the Nilghiris is very exact. He says, “ Le dos et les tectrices alaires sont d’un jaune-orange 
lave de rouge vif ; les plumes de ces parties sont oli vatres a leur bases, puis lavoes de jaune-orange et terminees d’un 
rouge a reflets qui borde aussi la moitie de la plume.” Blyth, in describing his B. micropus, which seems to me 
to have been an example of a pale-baclcecl bird of this species, speaks of the black of the nape being continued 
lower upon the shoulders, and considerably contracting “ the golden orange of the back.” The expression golden 
orange seems to imply a uniformity of coloration, as would have teen the case with a pale-backed individual. It 
is evident, from what I have adduced here, that this Woodpecker varies immensely in India in its coloration, but 
not so much, I am inclined to think, as in Ceylon. The extremely red bird was first of all considered by me to 
be distinct, and was named ( loc.cit .) B. intermedius ; but as I now find, from an examination of a more complete 
series, that there is every grade from the pale yellow to it, and having never seen another so dark, it becomes 
necessary to unite the two extremes. Bather, perhaps, does the pale golden bird need separation ; for I question 
whether any specimens from India can compare, in this respect, to the Ceylonese coast race. The area of country 
which it inhabits is, I think, too small to allow of its being elevated into a race or subspecies ; but if, when further 
investigation is brought to bear on the matter, it be found to be paler than any Indian examples, the entire 
Ceylonese group of Golden-backed Woodpeckers might well be separated as B. intermedius. It is just possible 
that the \ ery dark bird which I figure here may be a hybrid between B. ceylonus and the present species. 
As touching the synonymy of this Woodpecker, Malherbe’s name seems always to have been considered to have priority 
over Blyth s, owing probably to the November number of the ‘ Iievue Zoologique ’ having been published earlier 
