A Synopsis of the Birds of North America

by John James Audubon

270. 15. Picus varius, Linn. Yellow-bellied Woodpecker.

Male with the crown of the head and throat bright carmine; a semicircular patch of black on the lower fore neck, and a semilunar band on the occiput; upper parts bluish-black, variegated with white and yellow, lower yellow, with the sides undulated with dusky; middle tail-feathers with the inner web white, obliquely banded with black. Female similar, but with the throat white, and the yellow of the lower parts less pure. Young without red on the head or throat, the former dusky, streaked with faint brown, the latter greyish-white, the upper parts as in the adult, but duller, the tail variegated with white, the lower parts dull yellowish-grey, undulated with dusky, the abdomen dull yellowish.

Male, 8¹/₂, 15.

Breeds from Maryland northward to the Saskatchewan. Rather rare in the interior in summer. Many spend the winter in the Southern and Western Districts.

Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, Picus varius, Wils. Amer. Orn. v. i. p. 147.

Picus varius, Bonap. Syn. p. 45.

Picus (Dendrocopus) varius, Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, Swains. & Rich. F. Bor. Amer. v. ii. p. 309.

Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, Nutt. Man. v. i. p. 574.

Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, Picus varius. Aud. Amer. Orn. v. i. p. 519; v. v. p. 537.

** Hind toe wanting. Genus Apternus of authors.

271. 16. Picus arcticus, Swains. Arctic Three-toed Woodpecker.

Plate CXXXII. Male and Female.

Three-toed, with the upper parts glossy bluish-black, the lower white, the sides and lower wing-coverts transversely barred with black; tufts of bristly feathers black; crown of the head saffron-yellow; a white line from behind the eye, a band of the same from the base of the upper mandible to beneath the ear-coverts, succeeded by a black band; inner webs of all the quills and outer webs of the primaries spotted with white, there being seven spots on the outer, and five on the inner webs of the three longest; four middle tail-feathers black, the next with an oblique band of white, the rest black only at the base, except the outermost, of which nearly all the inner web is of that colour. Female without yellow on the head.