11 . 
BRACHYPTERNUS CEYLON US 
(THE RED WOODPECKER) 
ADULT MALE AND FEMALE 
Length 11.4 to 11.5 Inches; wing 5.2 to 5.65; tall 3.5 to 4; tarsus 1; 
outer anterior toe .8, Its claw (straight) .45; outer posterior toe .7; Dili 
to gape 1.5 to 1.6* 
DISTRIBUTION 
This Woodpecker Is the most abundant species of Its family in the island, 
and being such a common bird was known to the old naturalists Forster &c. 
It is diffused throughout the entire island, with perhaps the exception 
of the extreme North of the Vanhl and the Jaffna peninsula. It is abundant 
In th e Southern and Western Provinces, and equally so in the forest clad 
country lying to the South of the Haputale hills. In the interior of the 
Eastern Province, and scarcely less so in the jungles between Matale and 
Trincomalie, and in the North-west Province. Mr Holdsworth did not meet 
with It in the Aripu district, nor did I ooserve it there, nor in thb island 
of Manaar; some distance inland from Mantotte, it is,, I am informed, not un¬ 
common, as also further North in'the Vavonla Valankulam district. In the 
Kandyan Province it is not rare In the Knuckles district, in Puselawa, Nil am 
be, Hewahette, Dlmbula, and Uva, being perhaps most numerous in the latter 
In his *Prodomus\ Dr Kelaart records it as very abundant at Newera Elli^ 
but this remark, doubtless, really refers to Layard’s Woodpecker, which 
might easily be mistaken, by an’unpractised eye, for the present species. 
I have never seen it above 3500 or 4000 feet, but there is no reason why it 
should not range higher than that elevation. It is found likewise in the 
hills of the Southern Province, for it is not uncommon above Morowaka, and 
In other localities in the-Rakwana district. 
I did not notice it in the scrubby district along the South-eastern sea¬ 
board, not meeting It nearer the coast than about ten or fifteen miles North 
of Hambantotte; not so however, on the Western coast, where it frequents the 
cocoanut plantations close to the sea beach, being the first Woodpecker that 
the newly arrived collector meets with In his trips to Mount Lavlnia or thro 
the Sinnamon Gardens to the villages about Kotta. 
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