Bill about the length of the head, with the outlines considerably arched, the tips acute, and not laterally worn; upper parts black, lower white, with a tinge of brown, the sides very faintly barred with dusky; tufts covering the nostrils white; on the anterior part of the top of the head some feathers largely tipped with yellow; a band of white over the eye; loral space and a broad band behind the eye black; feathers along the middle of the back tipped with white; wings spotted with white; six spots on the outer, and four on the inner webs of the longer primaries; four middle tail-feathers black, the next with the tip obliquely white, that colour enlarging on the rest, so as to include almost the whole of the outer feathers.
Adult, 7, 131/2.
Louisiana.
Picus Auduboni, Audubon's Woodpecker, Trudeau, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sc. Philadelphia, v. vii. p. 404.
Audubon's Woodpecker, Picus Auduboni, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. v. p. 194.
269. 14. Picus ruber. Gmel. Red-breasted Woodpecker.
Plate CCCCXVI. Fig. 9. Male. Fig. 10. Female.
Head, neck, and fore part of breast, deep carmine; upper parts black, variegated with white, lower pale yellow, with the sides undulated with dusky; middle tail-feathers with the inner web white, obliquely banded with black.
Male, 8, 14. Female, 8; wing, 52/12.
Upper California. Columbia River. Nootka. Common. Migratory.
Red-breasted Woodpecker, Picus ruber, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. v. p. 179.