THE BIRDS OF LIBERIA 697 
Dendropicos lugubris lugubris Hartlaub. The Melancholy Woodpecker 
Dendropicus lugubris Hartlaub, Syst. Ornith. West Afr., p. 178, 1857: Aguapim. 
Small, length about 5.5 inches; forehead and rump brown, crown red; a whitish eyebrow stripe 
and a broad brown stripe from eye to ear and side of throat; a pale yellow spot each side of neck; 
wings and tail dark brown; throat white with brown triangular spots; below brown, the feathers 
edged with yellowish. Liberia to Gold Coast. 
Biittikofer secured an adult male in the forest behind Monrovia and mentions 
a specimen from Robertport, and one taken by Stampfli on the Junk. There 
are no other records and it is evidently rare. In Sierra Leone, Thompson (1925) 
mentions it as uncommon in brush-country (7.e., second-growth forest). We did 
not see it. 
Mesopicus goertae poicephalus (Swainson). West African Gray Woodpecker 
Dendrobates poicephalus Swainson, Birds West Africa, vol. 2, p. 154, 1837: Gambia. 
A medium-sized woodpecker, about 8 inches long; head pale gray, the occiput red in the male; 
breast and belly gray, the latter washed with golden; back greenish yellow, rump red, tail and 
wings brown, the latter speckled with whitish. 
Whitman and I secured an adult female of this ashy-headed species on Sep- 
tember 5, at Gbanga. It was at work on the trunk of a small tree that stood 
isolated on the edge of a rice-field bordered by a few high trees. Although 
Bannerman has recorded it from Sierra Leone, there is apparently no previous 
record of it from Liberia, nor did we again meet with it. 
Mesopicus pyrrhogaster (Malherbe). Fire-bellied Woodpecker 
Picus (Chloropicus) pyrrhogaster Malherbe, Rev. Zool., 1845, p. 399: Sierra Leone. 
Of medium size, greenish brown above, the crown (male) and rump scarlet; tail black, primaries 
with pale yellow spots on outer webs; a white line over eye, a black line through eye to ear; throat 
white bordered by a black stripe; breast and belly spotted, the center scarlet. Female with top of 
head black. Sierra Leone to northern Cameroons. 
This handsome woodpecker seems to be confined to the forest area of West 
Africa north of the Gulf of Guinea. Both Bittikofer and Lowe secured it, the 
former in the forests behind Monrovia, the latter at Nana Kru, but they evi- 
dently seldom met with it. We saw it perhaps more often than any of the other 
species, particularly in the open country about Gbanga, where in clearing ground 
for rice-fields, the natives had left occasional dead trees too large for use as fire 
wood. Unlike the ant-eating Campetheras, this woodpecker seems to have more 
normal habits, and is usually seen on dead trunks picking with no great energy 
at the soft wood and probably obtains numerous sorts of insects. In mid-Sep- 
tember we secured a pair at Gbanga and another male on the 19th. Both these 
male birds were drumming a low mellow roll of short duration, while in the first 
instance the female was seen busily at work on a nearby trunk, examining it for 
insects. A female shot November 3 at Moyla had the ovaries much enlarged as 
if about to lay eggs. Probably the nesting season comes late in the year as with 
so many birds, when the rainy season abates. 
