68 
NORTHERN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER. 
quarter, is of a blackish lead-colour, bluish white at the base of 
the lower mandible; it is very broad at base, cuneiform and 
obtuse at tip, and much depressed throughout, the ridge being 
very much flattened: both mandibles are perfectly straight; the 
upper pentagonal, the lower obtusely trigonal; the tongue is 
somewhat shorter than that of other species of the genus; the 
bristly feathers at the base of the bill are very thick and long, 
a provision which nature has made for most Arctic birds; in 
this they measure half an inch, and are blackish, white at base, 
somewhat mixed with reddish white; the irides are bluish black; 
the whole head and neck above and on the sides, back, rump, 
scapulars, smaller wing and tail-coverts, constituting the whole 
upper surface of the bird, of an uniform, deep, glossy black, 
changing somewhat to green and purple, according to the 
incidence of light; the feathers of the front are tipped with 
white, producing elegant dots of that colour, (which perhaps 
disappear with age); the crown of the head is ornamented with 
a beautiful oblong spot one inch in length, and more than half an 
inch broad, of a bright silky golden yellow, faintly tinged with 
orange, and the feathers in this place very fine, and somewhat 
rigid; they are black at their base, and marked with white at 
the limits of the two colours; the base of the plumage elsewhere 
is uniformly plumbeous ash: each side from the corner of the 
mouth, arises a broad white line, forming a white space before 
the eye, prolonged on the neck; beneath this there is a black 
one, which passing from the base of the lower mandible, joins the 
mass of black of the body; a tuft of setaceous white feathers 
advances far upon the bill beneath; the throat, breast, middle of 
the belly, and tips of the under tail-coverts are pure white; the 
sides of the breast, flanks broadly, and base of the tail-coverts, 
and even of some of the belly feathers, are thickly waved with 
lines of black and white, as well as the femoral and short tarsal 
