GENUS III. — PIC US. 
5. PIC US VARIUS, BONAPARTE. 
YOUNG YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER. 
BONAPARTE, PLATE VIII. FIG. I, II. 
As Wilson’s history of this well known woodpecker 
is complete, and his description obviously discriminates 
the sexes and young', we shall refer the reader entirely 
to him for information on these points. The present 
bird is introduced on account of anomalous plumage ; 
for, although the colour of the head is hut slightly 
advanced towards its red tint, having only two or three 
reddish points visible on the forehead, yet the patch on 
the breast is quite as obvious as it is found in the adult 
state. In young birds of the first and second years, this 
patch is usually obsolete, the breast being chiefly dusky 
gray, although the crown is entirely red. 
This specimen, possibly exhibiting one of the periodical 
states of plumage of this changeable bird, is the only 
one we have been able to procure amongst a great 
number of the young of both sexes in the ordinary dress. 
The well marked patch on the breast might induce the 
belief that this individual is an adult female, and that 
this sex, as several writers have erroneously remarked, 
is destitute of the red crown ; but, in addition to the 
fact that our specimen proved, on dissection, to be a 
male, we obtained, almost every day during the month 
of November, young birds of both sexes with the crown 
entirely red, or more or less sprinkled with that colour, 
the intermixture arising altogether from age or advanced 
plumage, and not from sex. We are unable to state, 
with any degree of certainty, at what period the bird 
