Form. About the size of Sylvicola æstiva. Bill slender; wing rather long, pointed; second and third quills longest, and nearly equal; tail moderate, emarginate; tarsi long, slender.
Dimensions. Total length (of skin) about 4¾ inches; wing 3¼; tail 2¼ inches.
Colors. Entire head, neck, and breast, dark orange, inclining to rufous, lighter on the throat; through the eye to the ear, a band of black; back and rump ashy-olive; quills brownish-black, edged on their outer webs with yellowish-olive, and on their inner webs with white; tail brownish-black, the outer feathers with a spot of white on their inner webs near the end; wing coverts brownish-black tipped with white, forming two conspicuous bars on the wing; abdomen and under tail coverts, pale greenish-ashy, nearly white in the middle of the former; under wing coverts white, tinged with ashy; bill dark, lighter at base of under mandible; tarsi dark.
Hab. Texas. Mexico. Spec. in Mus. Acad. Philada.
This bird presents some affinities and resemblance to the Sylvicola protonotarius of the Southern United States, but is much darker colored, and may readily be distinguished from that or any other species with which we are acquainted.
Plate 49
The Great-crested Woodpecker
Dryotomus imperialis (Gould)
DRYOTOMUS IMPERIALIS.—(Gould.)
The Great-crested Woodpecker.
PLATE XLIX. Adult Male.
Though not clearly made out as a bird entitled to a place in the ornithological fauna of the United States, we have given the plate now before the reader on grounds regarded as sufficient for the introduction of descriptions of this magnificent species into the works of other American authors, though it has never before been figured.
This is the largest of all known Woodpeckers, and is one of the most beautiful in plumage. It belongs strictly to the same group or genus as other large American species.