113 
Mr. E. Hargitt on a new Woodpecker. 
(De Oca), in the collection of Mr. Sclater, I was surprised to 
find the two birds perfectly distinct, the Arizona species 
having the back uniform, and the bird from Jalapa having 
the back barred with white. In this paper I shall endeavour 
to show which is the true P. stricklandi of Malherbe, and to 
prove that the Arizona bird is fully entitled to specific 
rank. 
Malherbe (Revue Zoologique, 1845, p. 373) described, 
under the title of Ficus ( Leuconotopicus ) stricklandi , a bird 
which he considered to be a young female, and in his Mono¬ 
graph he stated that he had seen a specimen of the adult male 
in the British Museum; also an adult female in a collection 
sent to Mr. Wilson of Philadelphia, and a young male in the 
Darmstadt Museum. The type specimen had the back banded 
with white; and Malherbe asserts that it is a young bird, and 
that the bars disappear with age. The specimen is certainly 
not fully adult, because in adult plumage the breast is spotted, 
whereas in the type, as described and figured by Malherbe, 
the breast is striped; but, judging by analogy, the bird 
could not be a very young one, or the top of the head would 
be red, as in the young male of the Arizona species ; and it is 
quite wrong to say that the white bars disappear with age, 
because, as the specimen in Mr. Sclater’s collection shows, 
the fully adult has also the back barred. Malherbe, in his 
Monograph, gives descriptions of the four examples seen by 
him, and he commences with that of the adult male, taken 
from the British Museum specimen. This bird, the habitat 
of which is stated on the label to be “ Mexico,” has the red 
occipital band without any red on the crown, and is un¬ 
doubtedly an adult bird; but it has the back uniform, and I 
take it to belong to a species entirely distinct from P. strick¬ 
landi. The next specimen described by the author is that of 
an adult female, which he says only differs from the adult 
male in wanting the red occipital band; we may therefore 
conclude that the back is uniform, as in the British Museum 
specimen, and that it belongs to the same species. The young 
male is next described; and this, according to Malherbe, 
differs in many respects from the adult male, the chief point of 
