114 Mr. E. Hargitt on a new Woodpecker. 
difference consisting in the feathers of the crown being tipped 
with red, the occiput being also red, in the young; he also states 
that it has the back as in the adult male, but browner and paler. 
There can be no doubt that the latter is a young bird, and as 
the back is like that of the adult male (uniform), it belongs to 
the same species ; but if, as Malherbe endeavours to make out, 
all these specimens belong to his P. stricklandi , why has not 
the young male a barred back ? seeing that it is a younger 
bird than his type specimen, as is proved by the former 
having the crown red, whereas in the latter it is not so. 
One would expect the young of both sexes to be alike, and it 
surely could not be that the young male would have a uni¬ 
form back, and the young female of the same species would 
have the back barred. In my opinion two species have 
been confounded, viz. :—Picus stricklandi of Malherbe, which 
is a bird having a barred back, and of which an immature 
female served as the type, and another species in which the 
back is uniform in all stages of plumage, and from which 
Malherbe’s descriptions of the male adult, female adult, and 
young male have been taken. 
This author, in his Monograph, plate xxviii. fig. 4 $, has 
allowed his artist to indicate white transverse markings on 
the lower back. If this is intended, as I should imagine, to 
represent the British Museum specimen, it is faulty, as in 
that bird the back is uniform. Fig. 5, on the same plate 
is evidently taken from the type specimen, judging by the 
striated breast, although the author does not state it to 
be so. 
Mr. W. Brewster, in f The Auk 9 for April 1885, describes 
some birds from Arizona, amongst them being what he terms 
Picus stricklandi , from the Santa Rita Mountains, and he 
points out that the young of both sexes have the crown red; 
but he makes no mention of any barrings on the upper parts, 
and it is well known that in the fully adult of the Arizona 
species the back is uniform. Therefore I think it cannot 
be doubted that, as in P. stricklandi of Malherbe, the adults 
(and, judging by the plumage of the type specimen, the 
younger bird also) have the upper parts barred with white, 
